The Top 15 things I learned in 2009: A Year In Review

Greetings and hard to believe 2009 is done and gone! Wow, time is just flying by at an insane rate.
I wanted to share with you some things I have learned and did in 2009. I know this sounds like a me, me, me, pumping sunshine up my butt post, but (ooooh, poor word choice) I hope you learn some new stuff along the way. I also want your comments at the end as to what I can do to help YOU!

I also need to thank you again for all the great questions, comments and feedback.  Without it I would be at the exact same place I was in early 2009.

Thank you!!!!

Strap in and here we go. I get more than a bit ranty in places too; so you have been warned.

1) Nerve Flossing

I am not sure how much of what we currently see if from scar tissue. Maybe the body is shutting down function to protect the nerves? Maybe it is fascia? Hard to say really, but many times nerve flossing can have profound effects

Nerve Flossing Z Health Style: I can rotate my neck /

2) Can we erase fear?

Should we? Is that a good idea?
I’ve been interested this past year in how good of a motivator is fear?

At what cost?

How do memories get imprinted and what physiological costs or benefits are associated with it?

Erasing Human Fear Response New Study

Fear and Learning

3) Does endurance training help strength training?

I am thinking yes! Even powerlifters at Westside are rumored to do 7-8 seesions at minium a week. It seems that low intensity work helps promote more parasympathetic response which can aid recovery

Endurance Training Vs Strength Training

4) Five Finger Death Punch rule!!

Five Finger Death Punch is now officially one of my favorite bands of all times. I got to see them live twice and they are amazing.

5) A day in the life

My life is still insane, but I am not complaining.  I also realized writing up studies takes a lot longer than I thought. Hopefully (fingers crossed) the experimental work is all done. I have to admit I don’t miss getting up at 5am most of those days to get to the lab to test subjects.

I am extremely grateful to those that volunteered for the study. I don’t miss sleeping in the lab either (yes I did that on occasion shhhhhh).  I can guarantee one hell of a party once I graduate!  I have a 1994 Late Bottled Vintage of Warre’s port that I have been saving in my wine fridge for over 4 years that I am going to open.  Yes, I am a wine and beer snob!

Metabolic Flexibility Research and An Average Day

6) Deeply honored

I felt very honored and privileged to be featured in many different areas from

Super Human Radio, to XL Athlete (thanks Cal), presenting at the NSCA state conference, Mark Young Training Systems, Vertical Jumping .com, Adam T Glass’s blog, NickTumminello.com, DieselCrew.com, presented at the Z-Health Advanced Nutrition  Course (9s)  in AZ on Metabolic Flexibility, 2 presentations at the Z Health Master Trainer Certification in San Diego in early Jan, helped teach at the RKC and Z-Heatlh certs and met many many great people along the way.

Super Human Radio Mike T Nelson Visual Aspect of Performance
XL Athlete: How to Cue Exercises Correctly
Neuroplasticity and Opposite Joints Mobility via the Nervous System
Vertical Jumping Interview with Mike T Nelson: How To Increase Your Vertical Jump

7) This video makes me laugh every time!

hahahaha

8 )  Brain neuroplasticity is the future of all athletic training.

Performance is dictated primarily by the brain via a combination of
Eyes (visual) + inner ear (vestibular) + joints (proprioception)

I am very excited to see where this is at in 2010

Brain Neuroplasticity in Athletic Development

The concept of working on opposite joints is still amazing to me. Why this has not been picked up by others I have zero idea. I first learned of it in the Z Health R Phase and I Phase. Left knee pain? Check the RIGHT elbow. Right ankle pain, check the LEFT wrist. Seriously, try it out (yeah I know I am really flogging the dead horse by now, but this is seriously wicked cool stuff)

Neuroplasticity and Opposite Joints Mobility via the Nervous System

Neuroplastciticy: My elbow hurts and you want me to check my knee?

9) Treadmills still suck

Stay the heck off them.  Go get a TRX or kettlebell instead.  Plus that will save you some cash too!

Cardio bunnies and a stick to the hornets nest

Need I say more?  Heck, this is my blog so I will say what I want.

10) More Music!

I got to see one of my favorite bands of all time release a killer new CD and see them live here in Minnesota. I am talking about the band Hatebreed of course!

11) A New Home

I switched over to a completely new platform with a new design to help serve all of you better. I will admit that I was pulling my hair out during the transition time, but I really love it now and hopefully you do too!

12) Static Stretching Suck Large Moose Balls

Static stretching is worthless and overrated.

Do you want to spend doing time on something that

1) you don’t like to do

2) makes you weaker? Bueler? Anyone?

I think the only reason it is still around is that people don’t think there is another option. Do active joint mobility (I like Z -Health) instead and if done CORRECTLY you can get ALL the benefit and zero of the bad stuff.

The Death of Static Stretching

While I am ranting away, long duration (10-20 minute) holds of a static stretch is probably the worst thing I have heard.

Again 1) who is really going to do it (a few people) 2) now you are really making the muscles weaker.

Yeah, I understand the whole argument of
“my hip flexors are tight and my glutes are weak, so stretch the hip flexors and activate the glutes”
Perhaps, but in almost every case where an athlete complains of that, I test their hip flexors (psoas actually), it almost always tests weak via a manual muscle test and their hip function is hosed up big time.
A little mobility work on the ankle (navicular area) and boom–psoas tests fine, gait is much better, hips are moving better.

More people are getting into mobile shoes like Vibrams, Nike Frees, etc.  The Nike SFB boot for the military based is based on the flexible sole concept (which is awesome for my military, police and SWAT athletes)

Along those lines, Born to Run is the best book I read this whole year. Seriously, for any fitness person this is a MUST read. Highly entertaining too.

13) Lumbar spine (low back) flexion will kill you.

Ok, maybe not

Flexion of the lumbar spine will kill you.

14) Walk the Walk

I realized I was not listening to my own advice about setting goals with deadlines. Crap. So I signed up for a meet on about 4 days notice. Oddly enough I got 2 PRs (personal records) and realized what I had been mssing in my training
1) fun

2) purpose

EVERYONE NEEDS a coach! Period. And I happen to know somone that has a few openings in 2010 wink wink

USAPL Mike T Nelson Results and Lessons Learned

Saturday Strongman Training White Bear Lake Minnesota

15) Time is Precious

Time is the MOST precious commodity that we “own.” I am fortunate that I was able to learn that the hard way early in life.

Take action towards your goals NOW!

The Time is Now

Bonus item!  16)  Dream It and Do it

As you know, I proposed to my soon to be wife this past July.   We had dated for 2.5 years at that point and once I knew she was the one (about 6 months in), I had it in my head that I would propos to her on stage at a Project 86 concert since that was our first official date and I am a big fan of the band.  I had no idea how I would make it happen, but fast forward 2 years later and we were in Arizona to see the band I was still frantically talking to the lead singer minutes before walking into the venue.  See the link below for how it turned out, complete with video!

Mike and Jodie are getting married (caught on video)

Special thanks to Jodie for a wonderful year and cheers to many more–I love you!

Coming in 2010

Biofeedback will revolutionize training as we know it now and make it accessible for everyone. Yeah that is a shameless plug for a product coming soon, but I’ve spent the last 2 years using it, researching different forms of biofeedback both in my lab (the Extreme Human Performance Center) and a real physiology lab (HRV studies on Monster Energy drink in college students) even longer than that.

The Future of Exercise Training- Programming with Biofeedback Videos

I need YOUR help

What do you want to see from me in 2010? How can I help YOU? When else do you get to pick my brain for free. Place a comment below and let me know help YOU reach YOUR goals.

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Busting Broscience: Does Increasing Testosterone and Anabolic Hormones with Exercise Equal More muscle and Strength?

Anabolic Hormones = More Muscle (Hypertrophy), Right?

You hear this in gyms everywhere,

“Dude, to get huge you need to get your test levels up higher”

or this one

“Brotha, you can’t workout any longer than 45 minutes or else you will go completely catabolic  bro!”

What? Is this true?

Have I been wasting all these years in the gym lifting longer than 45 minutes?  Do anabolic hormones from exercise matter for building muscle (hypertrophy)?

Where is the research?

I think the answer will surprise you.

In short, anabolic hormones from exercise don’t do much of anything for muscle growth.

from the study referenced below

“We report here that, despite being exposed to substantial differences in purportedly anabolic hormones such as testosterone, GH, and IGF-1, the rate of MPS (my note, this is Muscle Protein Synthesis, so adding protein to muscles to make them bigger) in identically exercised muscles was not different.

These data demonstrate that local factors are paramount in determining not only the signalling pathway activation but also the response of MPS.

Furthermore, our results indicate that increases in MPS are able to occur without increases in systemic anabolic hormone concentrations and are not enhanced by the acute elevation that can follow resistance exercise; this finding is in agreement with previous work from our lab showing that increases in circulating hormones are not necessary for hypertrophy (Wilkinson et al. 2006).”

Dave Barr from Muscle and Fitness and I geek out completely and discuss hormones and their effects in the video below.   This was filmed from the ACSM 2009 Annual Conference and I had a blast there.  I went there for a relaxing vacation (literally).

More Info!

Listen to the MP3 below for all the details and what you can do to improve your performance.  It is time to put this one to rest and there is even data going back to 1975 also (McManus et al.)

Also see this post

below

Supplements

To Naturually Increase Testosterone

More is not always better.  Better is better

Let me know what you think by posting comments as always.  Comments make me all warm and fuzzy.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

REFERENCES

Resistance exercise-induced increases in putative anabolic hormones do not enhance muscle protein synthesis or intracellular signalling in young men

We aimed to determine whether exercise-induced elevations in systemic concentration of testosterone, growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) enhanced post-exercise myofibrillar protein synthesis (MPS) and phosphorylation of signalling proteins important in regulating mRNA translation. Eight young men (20 ± 1.1 years, BMI = 26 ± 3.5 kg m^?2) completed two exercise protocols designed to mai

ntain basal hormone concentrations (low hormone, LH) or elicit increases in endogenous hormones (high hormone, HH). In the LH protocol, participants performed a bout of unilateral resistance exercise with the elbow flexors. The HH protocol consisted of the same elbow flexor exercise with the contralateral arm followed immediately by high-volume leg resistance exercise. Participants consumed 25 g of protein after arm exercise to maximize MPS. Muscle biopsies and blood samples were taken as appropriate. There were no changes in serum testosterone, GH or IGF-1 after the LH protocol, whereas there were marked elevations after HH (testosterone, P < 0.001; GH, P < 0.001; IGF-1, P < 0.05). Exercise stimulated a rise in MPS in the biceps brachii (rest = 0.040 ± 0.007, LH = 0.071 ± 0.008, HH = 0.064 ± 0.014% h^?1; P < 0.05) with no effect of elevated hormones (P = 0.72). Phosphorylation of the 70 kDa S6 protein kinase (p70S6K) also increased post-exercise (P < 0.05) with no differences between conditions. We conclude that the transient increases in endogenous purportedly anabolic hormones do not enhance fed-state anabolic signalling or MPS following resistance exercise. Local mechanisms are likely to be of predominant importance for the post-exercise increase in MPS.

Elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones with resistance exercise enhance neither training-induced muscle hypertrophy nor strength of the elbow flexors

The aim of our study was to determine whether resistance exercise-induced elevations in endogenous hormones enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy with training. Twelve healthy young men (21.8 +/- 1.2 y, BMI = 23.1 +/- 0.6 kg(.)m(-2)) independently trained their elbow flexors for 15 weeks on separate days and under different hormonal milieu. In one training condition, participants performed isolated arm curl exercise designed to maintain basal hormone concentrations (low hormone, LH); in the other training condition, participants performed identical arm exercise to the LH condition followed immediately by a high volume of leg resistance exercise to elicit a large increase in endogenous hormones (High Hormone, HH). There was no elevation in serum growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor (IG

F-1) or testosterone after the LH protocol, but significant (P < 0.001) elevations in these hormones immediately and 15 and 30 min after the HH protocol. The hormone responses elicited by each respective exercise protocol late in the training period were similar to the response elicited early in the training period indicating that a divergent post-exercise hormone response was maintained over the training period. Muscle cross-sectional area increased by 12% in LH and 10% in HH (P < 0.001) with no difference between conditions (condition x training interaction, P = 0.25). Similarly, type I (P < 0.01) and type II (P < 0.001) muscle fiber CSA increased with training with no effect of hormone elevation in the HH condition. Strength increased in both arms but the increase was not different between the LH and HH conditions. We conclude that exposure of loaded muscle to acute exercise-induced elevations in endogenous anabolic hormones enhances neither muscle hypertrophy nor strength with resistance training in young men. Key words: testosterone, growth hormone, IGF-1, anabolism.

Skeletal muscle leucine incorporation and testosterone uptake in exercised guinea pigs.

McManus BM, Lamb DR, Judis JJ, Scala J.  Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1975 Aug 15;34(3):149-56.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Play Now:

 Hormones Needed for Muscle Hypertrophy? [12:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Science Behind Biofeedback

I’ve been getting some great questions regarding biofeedback as of late, which is awesome. I am glad to see others asking questions and taking action. Kudos to you!

One of the questions has been around the science of biofeedback

• Is there any science?

• What does the science say?

• Who is this Mike T Nelson character and is he qualified to answer any of this?

• Why is he wearing a lab coat?

Find out below

Mike T Nelson Background

The Science of Biofeedback

Comments

What are your thoughts? Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Revolution Is My Name

I trust your Christmas was a great one! Jodie and I took off both Sat and Sun to celebrate Christmas and a rescheduled Christmas Eve on Sunday due to snow. For all the Scandinavians out there, you will be proud to know that my Dad’s side of the family still serve lutefisk on Christmas Eve. While I do not partake in that tradition, it is still alive and well (and smelly too).

I will have some great stuff coming up this week and an important video tomorrow on Biofeedback for all those that requested it, so stay tuned for that!

Revolution

It is time for a revolution, kills the gurus and make the best training progress of your life.

To kick it off, here is some old school live Pantera. I so miss seeing Dimebag Darrell play guitar. He makes it look so easy.

I actually saw him play with the band Damageplan about a week or so before he was killed on stage. My good buddy the Rev David J Ciancio was actually at the same show and I was supposed to meet up with him and the band later that night; but as it turned out they never left the tour bus for a night on the town; so we did not meet up.

Freaky to think he only had a few days left at that point. You never know when your time is up.

The time is now!

Pantera “Revolution is my name”

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Merry Christmas to everyone and time for feats of strength!

This is the Christmas edition and tons of great stuff.  I trust that you are having some great times with family and loved ones, so take time to enjoy it.

Here is my Holiday video for you!

Motivation

The Great Kaz is probably the greatest strongman ever. If this video does not get you excited to go lift something heavy you need to check out your pulse!

Notice how easy he makes it LOOK. These feats are FAR from easy, but he is making them look easy. The squat is over 850 lbs I think and the deadlift is around 800 lbs (around the 2:30 mark).

Flipping cars–no problem! Pulling semis—bring it on! Wow.

Maybe it is the hair?

Festivus PRs

I am a huge Seinfeld fan, so I am sure you remember the Festivus episode. From the wikipedia entry on it says

“the holiday’s celebration, as shown on Seinfeld, includes an unadorned aluminum “Festivus pole”, practices such as the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength”, and the labeling of easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles”.

One of my goals for 2009 was to deadlift 425 lbs (no belt) by the end of the year. I had planned to do that in a meet in July, but I ended up not doing a meet until September and pulled 413 lbs, then a few weeks later at the TSC pulled 420 lbs. I put my DL on hold after that and began to work on my squat since I felt it was holding my DL back (and was very weak). Fast forward to recently and I had planned to squat today, but noticed that I still have not made my DL goal.

I went into the Extreme Human Performance Center (my garage) and tested my DL using biofeedback. It tested great. Whoo ha. Warmup at 135, 225, 275, and 315 –all felt great and tested good. 365 came up fast and tested well. On

to 405 lbs. 405 in training most of the time is hit and miss, but it came up the fastest yet; so 425 was within reach and I made it.

Notice that I still need some hip work near the top as my hamstrings were shaky, but overall it felt pretty good (most PRs are never perfect).

It is a Festivus Miracle!

Deadlift PR Video (music by American Head Charge)

Your Festivus Miracle

I want to hear about YOUR Holiday “Feats of Strength” by placing a comment on what PRs (Personal Records) you have broken recently. Any PR counts, so post away! I want to see ATLEAST 10 comments here.

Happy Holidays
rock on
Mike T Nelson
PS
If you don’t have any PRs to report, I have 1-2 spots open for online training. Email me HERE.

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Be Remarkable, the number 400, purple cows and you!

The other day when I was updating posts, I realized that this is post #401. Yep, there are over 400 posts on this blog now. Wow, that blows my own mind. For those following along since the start you know that I was on blogger for about 2 years before moving all the content over to the new home here.

The very first post I ever wrote is below

Walking vs Running: Which Burns More Calories?

So I want to thank ALL of you for reading along on my journey.  I really do appreciate all the comments, emails and feedback (hate mail is probably a bit strong).

Struggling

I was searching for something to make the 400th post memorable and I was struggling. There was so much I wanted to say, but I had no idea where to start and then it hit me in the form of this video from my buddy Craig at The Movement Dallas

Be Remarkable

I have always said that the worst place to be is a trainer/coach that gets good results. It is a fast death sentence with a long pit stop at stagnation. I was excited to see that others who I respect (like Seth in the video above) were saying the same thing (although for much longer and much louder).

If you are a trainer getting good to very good results there is not as much drive to do better. Why learn something new that may change my mind when I am getting results already? If you suck, it is pretty obvious (by looking at your athletes results and your bank account) that you need to put up, shut up, or get out FAST.

I hate the word average.  Nobody wants to be average.  This is Extreme Human Performance not Average Human Performance (yawn….)

My Goal

My goal is to get the best results from everyone I work this and to strive to continuously improve myself. This will mean screwing up. Actually screwing up a lot. Now I won’t let an athlete leave moving worse because I re-assess everything, but I won’t have them try the correct drill all the time, every time.

My long term goal is to get 99% of the athletes I see moving better without pain (pain on a 1-10 scale to less than a 1) and performing better in ONE session. Yes, you read that right, ONE session. While this business model sucks large moose balls from a revenue standpoint, I believe it is what athletes are paying for when they hire me or anyone else.

I’ve explained this goal to others in the field and most of the time it is met with one of the 3 things
1) Deer in the head lights of a Peterbuilt look
2) “You are nuts!” (probably true)
3) that is not physically possible.

While I am not there yet, I am at about 80-90% and I know others who are in the area. I am not trying to pump sunshine up my butt here, but athletes pay for results not time. Your goal as a trainer/goal is to deliver results. Period.

Fear of Failure

I believe you need to fail as fast as possible in order to achieve greatness. Most are too afraid to try for fear of failure. Wired magazine (my favorite magazine) has a great cover article discussing how to correctly fail.

Purple Cow or Skiing Ostrich

As Seth points out in the video above (you did watch it, right?) that since their are so few purple cows, if you see one, you will stop and go “Holy crap, look at that!” I would argue that their are few skiing Ostriches, so you will stop and watch one ski

That is one bada$$ two-planking bird!

Being remarkable is rare, so that IS your marketing and others will hopefully spread the good word.

What Do YOU Want To See?

My goal as always is to bring you information you will not find in many places about how to get stronger and become a better athlete.

You won’t read the standard stuff here that you can find on 100s of other websites. Stretching this, lift that, repeat. Please. You know that already and my guess is that is why you are reading here.

You want to move beyond that.

HOW can I lift more?

HOW can I move better with less pain?

WHY do I need protein after I lift?

What does the research say so I can stop reading BroScience articles (er I mean forum posts) from Johnny Big Gunz who lives in his mother’s basement swiping an internet connection from the neighbor.

Feedback

Place some comments on what you want to see here and I promise you that I will work my hardest to deliver it to you.

Now is your time to pick for brain for free and help me deliver what YOU want in 2010.

Rock on!
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Do your thoughts help you to lift more weight in the gym?

Watch this video and find out!

Your Turn

Try it and let me know what you find! Time for action!

Drop me a comment and let me know how it worked for you

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Cooking in the Lab: Low Carb Egg Nog Super Shake

Happy Holidays and time we do some cooking the lab!

I’ve tried it a few times after and I like it a little better now without the vanilla, but feel free to adjust to your taste. I have not added too many veggies to it yet, but I was thinking a few figs may be interesting.

Let me know what you think and if you have any other great super shake recipes to share in the comments.

Rock on
Mike T Nelson

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Bennet Sisters Boxing Circa 1915

Guest post on Training for Females by Brian Copeland

Today I have a special guest post from my buddy Brian Copeland in Colorado.  Brian was actually an assistant when I did my RKC back in October 2007 on  Brett Jones’s team.  Fast forward a few years and Brian was at the RKC assisting again when I was assisting this past June here in Minnesota.

Sit back and let Brain explain why females need to train hard and don’t believe all that crap about only using the pink dumbbells.    I routinely have women using the 16 kg kettlbell for swings within a 1-2 sessions to start.

Take it away Brian……

Getting Tone but NOT Big for Female Trainees

By Brian Copeland, RKC, PFS, Z-Health Performance Coach

My female clients always say the same thing to me; “I don’t want to get big and bulky.” Well… you probably couldn’t even if you wanted to! In this article I am going to cover some basic concepts to getting tone and healthy without getting big or bulky

Concept 1 – Hormones:

Women by nature are lower in the hormone testosterone; this is the hormone that is responsible for the image of oversized men with large heads, no necks, hairy backs and bad tempers. It is in fact the hormone that helps people build muscle; that is why many professional athletes take legal or illegal substances to increase their testosterone level beyond natural levels.

Ladies, if professional athletes have to increase their level of testosterone to get “big” then as long as you don’t take steroids you will be fine. You just don’t produce enough of the hormone to get manly looking; in fact if you put any muscle on it will only improve your hourglass figure.

As international strength and conditioning coach Mike Mahler says,

“Getting too big is like having too much money; it isn’t going to happen!”

Concept 2 – Body Fat Level:

High body fat is almost always the culprit in looking bulky or big. In reality a woman who puts on muscle and looses some body fat will look leaner; here is why. Muscle weighs twice as much as fat per volume. That means if your right butt cheek weighed 4 lbs from fat but your left one weighed 4 lbs from muscle, your left one would be half the size!!!

Putting on muscle and dropping the fat is the fast track to looking thin. Now remember, women do not gain a lot of muscle so you will probably replace the 4 lb right butt cheek with a 1 or 2 lb butt cheek. Just make sure to replace both cheeks at the same time ok!

Mike’s note.  Don’t believe Brian, check out this video below

Ok, back to Brian…

Now what about too low of body fat? Have you ever seen a female professional bodybuilder who has veins on her stomach? That is because her body fat is super low, as low as 3%. Now I’m a pretty lean guy with a six-pack and I’m over twice that level of body fat to give you an idea. It is completely not natural for a woman or a man to be that lean. To get that lean those professional bodybuilders (there is that word ‘professional’ again) must work SUPER hard and eat SUPER strict and take TONS of supplements. Plus they usually can only make themselves look like that for a couple of days or even just a couple of hours before their body fat increases up to a healthier level.

So to summarize, if you don’t want to look like a man, lower your body fat to a feminine level (when you think you look good), increase muscle as much as you can and don’t worry about dropping to a bodybuilder level of body fat because most people aren’t disciplined enough to even come close to that level

Concept 3 – Strength Training:

There are plenty of good intentioned but uninformed people who are more than willing to offer quick and easy advice about fitness, unfortunately they almost never know what they are talking about. Even worse are the countless articles written in women’s magazines by self proclaimed fitness experts who will tell you what you want to hear in order to sell the magazine. Things like, “Walk Your Way To Skinny” or “The 2-Minute Per Day Fitness Program To Getting A Lean And Sexy Body.” WOW, sign me up! That easy huh? Well, in reality anything in life worth pursuing requires some work. There are no free lunches folks!

Conversely an interesting fact is that getting a lean and sexy body does not have to take a lot of time and it does not have to hurt when you do it. If you are attending spinning classes for 2 hours a day or doing countless fire hydrants to make your buns firm then I’m here to tell you stop wasting your time! There is a better, more effective, faster way!

There are two types of training that should be considered for the non-athlete who wants to improve the way their body looks, cardio training and strength training.

Many women are scared of strength training because they associate it with big bulky muscles. We have already covered why women will not get big and bulky so let’s cover what real strength training is, what it is not and what it will do for you.

What it is:

• Training with fairly heavy weight or a fairly challenging exercise
• If you can lift it more than 7 times, it is too easy (light)
• Exercises that use as many muscles at once as possible
• Brief, intense and over with very quickly

What it is not:

• Training with light easy weights or exercises that don’t really challenge you
• If you can lift it more than 10 times, it is way to easy to do you any good (there are exceptions to this rule but that is for another topic)
• Isolation exercises like dumbbell curls or thigh machines
• Long, drawn out, exhausting workouts leaving you feeling like crap

What real strength training will do for you:

• Create muscle tone
• Make you healthier and… stronger of course
• Prevent injuries and teach to you lift heavy or awkward object without hurting yourself
• Make daily life activities easier to perform. Such as picking up the baby’s car seat, with the baby in it, picking up groceries out of your trunk, etc.

Pavel Tsatsouline, an internationally sought after strength and conditioning coach says, “Strength and tone training are the same thing.” If you want to get strong, use heavy weight but don’t do a lot of set or reps. Sets and reps will tear down the muscle and will cause the body to go into survival repair mode. In order to survive your next brutal workout it will replace your old muscle with more muscle! Lifting heavy weight a few times and then going home will make you stronger and more tone without adding any bulk.

Why am I having trouble getting buns of steel?

The glutes have a lot of strength and leverage. When you see a powerlifter squat or deadlift a bar bending load, it is the incredibly strong glutes that do most of the lifting. When you do butt squeezes, fire hydrants or any other silly moves popular in muscle sculpting classes you are not even coming close to the potential of your glutes’ strength. If you were not challenging the glutes why would they get more tone?

If you are ‘feeling the burn’ and think that you are accomplishing something, all you are experiencing is a build-up of lactic acid in the muscles and does nothing for the tone of your muscles. The way you feel has nothing to do with if you are physiologically improving yourself.

Don’t believe me? In the Guinness Book of World Records look up a picture of ‘Captain American’ who holds the world record for the most consecutive number of sit-ups, about 25,000! This dude sure must have felt the burn more than anyone but he does not even have a six-pack to show for it, even at his low level of body fat!

Concept 4 – Cardio Training:

The final concept I’ll talk about is cardio training. I won’t spend much time here but in summation, 20-30 minutes of cardio max is what the doctor ordered, literally! Dr. Al Sears the Director of The Center for Health and Wellness in south Florida who has helped over 15,000 patients overcome heart disease and loose weight says those long cardio sessions such as marathon running are incredibly bad for your health. The constant pounding on your joints is bad for your feet, ankles, knees, hips and lower back.

It also decreases muscle mass (as is apparent from looking at any big time marathon runner) and guess what… the heart is made of muscle. Long aerobic sessions will decrease the size of the heart itself which in turn makes the heart more susceptible to heart attacks. The heart will beat until the day you die, no pun intended. You do not need to train it to beat longer; you need to train it to handle larger volumes of blood and oxygen through brief and intense cardio exercise. Have you ever seen a movie where bad news is delivered to someone and they grasp their heart, and then keel over from a heart attack. Well, that is what you need to strengthen your heart to do, keep beating when sudden intense spikes in the heart’s output is demanded.

Dr. Sears recommends brief and intense interval style training to strengthen the heart. A way to accomplish this is with High Octane Cardio. 1-minute of moderate cardio exercise followed immediately by 30 seconds of intense cardio, followed by a 1-minute rest. Then repeat the 1-minutes moderate followed by the 30 second intense, rest again and repeat.

As always consult a doctor before beginning any type of training program, especially if you have any pre-existing health conditions which may put you at risk.

About Brian Copeland

Brian Copeland is a certified Z-Health Movement Reeducation and Integration Specialist, RKC certified kettlebell instructor and Progressive Fighting Systems certified Martial Arts instructor. Brian specializes in helping women and men integrate fitness into their lifestyle, eliminating aches and pains and improving their athletic performance.

Visit Brian at http://www.bccorefitness.com/

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE

Ouch, the Muscles Around My Shoulder Hurt:  Testimonial for Mike T Nelson

What are you waiting for?

If you liked this post, please subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking HERE