Possibly the Simplest Weight Loss Plan Ever.

As I write this I am watching NBC’s “The Biggest Loser”.  I use to think this show was stupid and it was just a bunch of overweight people who couldn’t take care of themselves.  My wife watches it  and got me hooked.  This isn’t because of the drama, that just makes me angry, it’s because of the amazing heart that these people display. 

 A lot of people will attest the contestants weight loss to the trainers on the show, but that is a very small piece of the puzzle.  On the first episode of this season the first thing the contestants did was a 1 mile run/walk.  This isn’t necessarily a difficult task for the majority of our society, but for someone who is over 400lbs it’s ridiculously hard. You might as well tell them to run a marathon.  Not one of them ran the entire way but all of them finished.  One woman was reduced to crawling for the last 100 yards. When the medic told her to stop she told him, “No, I’m going to crawl” and pushed him away.  It took every one of the contestants to get her past the finish line but she got there, and then she passed out and was medivac’d to the hospital.  She is still competing on the show.  There was also one man who was sent away in an ambulance and they found that he was dehydrated, had low blood sugar and low blood pressure.  This was enough to keep him in the hospital for a day.  All from only 1 MILE.  When was the last time you worked out until you had to be taken away in a helicopter? 

This heart they display is the key to the success seen on the show.  The trainers are just there to tell them what to do, they’re not there to work off the pounds for them or fuel some fire in them.  They already had that, that’s how they got there and that’s why they stay there.  They also have the option of giving up. The biggest contestant in the shows history quit during the first workout, she also came back and finished the workout.

See, the key to these people’s success isn’t the professional trainers, it’s not the high tech facility or the expensive workout clothes that they’re outfitted with.  The key to their success, is hard work.  They’re given a training regimen and they go at it … hard.

With that little schpeel out there, here’s the simplest weight loss program ever.  Now keep this in mind, I said simplest, not easiest.  Here it is:

1:  Decide you need to lose weight.  Maybe it’s a little weight, maybe it’s a lot.

2:  Find something you enjoy doing.  This is probably the second most important portion of this program.  If you enjoy what you’re doing then you’ll do it longer and are more likely to stick to it.  Besides, what’s the point in doing something you don’t like doing? I was a fat kid, it didn’t really bother me except for when my sister would call me “tubby”.  Anyway, I started playing football my freshman year and got into a little better shape.  Then I started wrestling my sophomore year and all that fat melted right off.  I didn’t do it to lose weight, I did it because I liked wrestling and not only did I get into great shape, I also became a better football player and, was obviously healthier.

3:  Set a goal in the activity you decide to take up.  Making weight loss goals is important but if you make a performance goal, you have an additional reward to look forward to and if you don’t make progress on your weight loss goal one week, you will probably make progress towards your performance goal, this is still progress and will eventually lead to meeting both goals.

4:  WORK HARD.  This is the most important step in this weight loss program and one that absolutely CANNOT be overlooked.  If this step is ignored then the program will not work, period.  Simply working out will get you minimal results, if any.  You must work extremely hard, then you will see great results.

Sean, a contestant on the current season of “The Biggest Loser” said it best when he said: “It’s like having your dream come true, but it only comes true through sweat and pain”.

It’s only my aim to encourage others to excel in their fitness goals.  I’d be happy to help out anyone, just leave any questions in the comments and I’ll do anything I can for you.

*this is only the opinion of the author and is not a certified program.  The author is not a certified trainer or dietician.

Why I like kettlebells…A LOT!

Here’s some reasons that I’m really into kettlebells.

They’re unconventional, well at least for now, they’re becoming more and more common and accepted as a superior tool for strength and conditioning.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve always been drawn to the unpopular and lesser known things in life.  Kettlebells are just that.  Almost every time I take mine to the park Iget the question, “What’s that?”.  I even spent 15 minutes explaining them to one man and his final understanding was:  “so they’re like dumbbells, only smaller?”.  I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion but he was way off and I couldn’t convince him otherwise.  The kettlebells look alone is intimidating enough to turn away anyone uneducated on the subject.  It’s often been compared to a cannonball with a handle on it and who wants to play around with oldschool ammunition like that.  I do, and hopefully you’ll be willing to overlook the kettlebells scary appearance and give it a swing.  You’ll thank yourself.

They’re portable.  Now almost every piece of exercise equipment claims to have some portability but how much more portable can you get than a 12″x 8″ piece of metal.  It might be difficult to move but you can move it anywhere you like.  One of my favorite things about the kettlebell is that I can pack it into the back of my car, drive to the park or beach on a nice day and enjoy the beautiful creation while getting a really great workout.  This also means that if you don’t have time to get to the gym you can spend a half hour in your backyard or garage and get some quality training in.

They’re a fantastic conditioning tool.   If you get ahold of a kettlebell, try giving it a swing.  After a few repititions you’ll see what I mean.  You’re heart rate will skyrocket much more quickly than running or swimming, or any other form of “cardio work”.   The first time my sister touched a kettlebell she just did 10 swings with an 8kg(18lb) kettlebell, and with a surprised look on her face said, “I never thought any exercise would get me out of breath with just 10 reps”.  It works, and just think, you can pick up a kettlebell and NEVER run again, unless you like running that is.  I don’t want to discourage anyone from doing something they enjoy.   I still enjoy a nice run.

It’s almost impossible to do “isolation”movements with a kettlebell.  If you haven’t figured out, I don’t like isolating muscles.  Actually, I LOATH isolation movements.  The body was not meant to move one muscle at a time.  Keep this in mind and pay attention to your movement throughout the day.  I can guarentee that you will not do anything with just one muscle.  Your muscles were designed to work in conjunction with each other and to assist one another.  Pavel Tsatsouline talks about this in his book, “Power to the People”.  He says that in a lift the muscles surrounding the main muscle being used can tense up and therefore increase the power production in the lift.  You can see this for yourself when you do a biceps curl, for instance, notice how your deltoids, traps and core tense up, they’re doing this for a reason.  They are assisting the biceps in lifting the weight, just like a team in a tug-of-war.

They’re great for your butt.  This is one reason that my Coach started working with kettlbells, to teach his athletes to use their backside. Some people probably don’t realize it but the glutes are, or at least should be, a very powerful muscle and it is commonly overlooked.  If they aren’t overlooked then training them is usually gone about improperly.  I’m not saying that everyone needs to work on building “buns of steel”  but the glutes are an integral part of such lifts as the squat, deadlift and any other lift involving the legs as well as doing a lot of work in running.  Kettlebell lifts will do two things for you in this area: 1) teach you to use your glute/hips properly and 2) increase the strength of the glutes leading to increased gains in squats, deadlift and anything else that you use your legs for.I don’t think I need to mention it but it will also firm that backside up very nicely, if that’s the only thing you’re looking for then the kettlebell will deliver.

Take Your Mind INTO It

This will be the first post in a series about some things I’ve learned through training.  It may be a while between posts due to my current schedule but I’ll put stuff up as often as possible.  Here’s number one.

Intensity.  Intensity is seen in many different forms.  Some would count it as the weight on the bar, some count it as the number of reps, some count it as the amount of rest you take in a workout.   A lot of it depends on what your training for or maybe something you’re just trying to improve. 

It is common to view intensity subjectively, ignoring the fact that different people train for different things and what is intense to one person doesn’t seem so to another. 

Something I’ve learned is that intensity begins in the mind.  This sounds very cliche, like something a “fitness trainer” might tell you and you would ignore because a “fitness trainer” told you this.  Rightfully so, six months ago I would have done the same thing because I didn’t understand what it meant, and they will never tell you what it means.  This is probably because they don’t know what it truly means either.  Very few people have truly experienced this and few ever will.  They’ll sell you phrases like; “It’s all mental” and “It’s just in your mind”, but can they tell you what that means.

I couldn’t until I experienced it.  My first lifting coach was big on this.  He’ll get people to move weight which they don’t believe that they can simply by talking them through it.  He’s told me that while most people may not think they can lift a heavy weight for a given number of reps but he can get one rep out of them, after that another, until finally they get through the entire set.  I experienced this about three months ago, although he wasn’t around.  I was training to increase my 1 rep max for the squat and gotten to 275 lbs for three sets of five.  This doesn’t seem like much to an experienced lifter but it was new territory to me.  The load looked very intimidating to me but I remembered Coach’s training: one perfect rep at a time.  So I heeded the advice and began each set.  I set up and just as if he was talking me through it: “pick a spot on the wall and focus on it, now move from strong position to strong position”.   So I did it just like Coach was right there with me, even though he was 300 miles away. All three sets.  On a weight I had never pushed with free weight before and I couldn’t have done it without putting my mind completely in it.  Notice I didn’t say taking my mind off of it.  You don’t improve by slacking focus, that’s how you digress.  

That’s when it hit me.  Intensity isn’t simply suffering through a hard workout but immersing yourself in every second of it.  When you don’t just slam through a session but focus on doing every tough rep perfectly, that’s intensity.  It’s perfecting every rep and doing so with all of your mind.

It’s been a while but here’s what I’ve been doing.

I haven’t posted anything in a while, some people may have noticed, some may not have. 

The reason for this is very simple.  I’ve been working 12-14 hours a day and trying to balance my free time between my wife, church, rest and training.  Unfortunately my new outrageous work schedule has cut into my free time and drastically reduced the amount of time I have to enjoy the things that I did  4 weeks ago.  I have had very little time to spend with my wife who, thankfully, has been extremely understanding and accomadating to the increase of stupid work hours. 

 I’ve had to cut down my training to whenever I have time available and am not completely exhausted.  I’ve been getting around 3-4 days a week in, 5 when I’m lucky.   It has been frustrating but I’ve been able to make good progress on the girevoy sport front.  For those of you who don’t know,  girevoy sport is competitve kettlebell lifting.    I’m competing in the classic biathlon, this is the jerk and the snatch. 

When I began training for this I was only able to do the jerks for sets of 3 minutes,  with 1 rep. every 10 seconds.  Yesterday I was able to maintain the jerk for a full 10 minutes, I only did 1 rep every 15 seconds but the important part is that I was able to keep up for ten minutes.  Now I must concetrate on increasing the volume of reps.

I’ve also made some progress on the snatch.  Two weeks ago I was able to get 40 reps on each arm and my grip was so weak that I was losing form trying not to drop the bell.  On Thursday I got 47 reps on each arm and was able to keep good form until I dropped the bell because my grip gave out.

 My first competition is September 20th, here in San Diego and I couldn’t be more excited.  I’m confident that I’ll be able to continue to make progress and put up some good numbers during the competition.  My main goal is to make rank I in the American Kettlebell Club, in order to do that I will have to do 63 jerks and 63 snatches on each arm.  I have a lot of confidence that I’ll be able to do it and can’t wait.

New Day

I’ve decided to put off my new squat/deadlift/benchpress goals for a while.  I’m entering the California pro/am Kettlebell Lifting Championships under the USGSF on September 20th. 

The squat/deadlift/benchpress just isn’t in line with competing in GS so I’m putting them off for a while.  I will continue to work on those lifts but I won’t be focusing so intensely on them  for a while. 

Yesterday was the first day I worked with a coach  for any sort of kettlebell lifting.  His name’s Erik, you should check out his site: www.thecactusmonster.com.

We did the jerk which is something I’ve not worked with much in the past so it was quite a chore.  We basically just went over form and did three sets of 3:00 with one jerk every 10 seconds.

Today we worked the snatch.  This is something I’m pretty good at but I’ve always done it hardstyle so we had to make a few adjustments for GS. 

Did one set of 5:00, 2:30 on each arm.  I got 50 left/48 right.  Then 2 sets of 2:00 snatch sprints with 2:00 rest between.  25 reps each arm both sets.

I’m very excited to get started in Girevoy Sport.  It’s going to be a lot of hard work and I’m looking forward to all of it!

I’m taking a break

Unfrotunately I must take a short break from training. 

I made the mistake of taking on these new goals plus beginning a high rep kettlebell trainng program all at the same time.  I did not spend any period of time conditioning myself for any of this so it has taken a toll on my body, my lower back in particular.

Because of this I’ve decided to take a week off.  This is not something that I’m excited about but I’ve had some intense tightness in my lower back and it’s gotten worst as the weeks have progessed.  I’ve decided to start over next week  at a lower level.  I’m going to lower the weight for all lifts and better prepare myself to train them.  I’ll be doing the same with the kettlebells and hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be able to be back at the level I was at three weeks ago.

This has taught me the value of listening to your body.  I’ve been putting myself through some intense training with too little thought about recupperation.   I now know the importance of balance in a training program.  It’s important too push yourself but it’s just as important to let your body recover so you can push yourself the next time you train.

Day 11

Day 11, july 26, 2009:

Squats:  1×5(135lbs)  1×3(225lbs)  2×5(285lbs)  1×3(285lbs), I tried to get a third set of five but failed, I only got three.

Pinch the strap crunches:5×8(25lbs)

Hanging leg raises:5×5

Day 10

Day 10, July 24, 2009:

bench press:  1×5(135lbs)  3×5(240lbs)

pull-ups:  pyramid 1-8;8-1.  I focused on doing perfect pullups and continued until my form began to degrade.  Once my form started to give I began to descend the ladder

Kettlebell swings:  32kg/70lbs  100 reps for time:4:30

Hanging leg raises:5×5

Quality vs. Quantity

Form is something that is all too often sacrificed in the pursuit of accomplishing more work.  I agree that the only way to increase strength is to increase the amount of work performed in  each session but this is a misguideed attempt. 

More work does not equal more strength if you aren’t using the right muscle groups.   The abdominals are a great example of how you can get better results while doing less. You can do a lot of abdominal work without actually working the abdominal muscles. I used to know a guy who would do upwards of 1,000 crunches in a workout.  He could never get the six pack that he wanted though.  This made no sense to the guy, and probably still doesn’t.  When you do 1,000 reps with one muscle group you should see great results right?  The  problem is that he wasn’t using his abdominal muscles as much as he thought he was.  He did his crunches with his legs raised in the air and then violently lifted his torso off the ground, looking like a wind up toy vibrating around the floor.  Instead of using his abs, he used his quadriceps and illios sohas(hip flexors), this is a mistake that many people make.  If he just forgot about doing a lot of crunches and focused on working his abs he could have gotten a much stronger abdom and subsequently that six pack that he was looking for.

This is something that is overlooked all too often.  It’s tempting to give up proper form in order to impress ourselves and others with numbers, but numbers don’t increase strength.  The only way you increase strength is to work the muscle through a proper range of motion.  Once you can do an exercise properly it becomes time to increase reps but form always comes first.

Day 9

Day 9, july 21, 2009:

bench press: 5×135lbs; 5;245lbs.;2×5(240lbs)

squats:1×5(135lbs);1×5(225lbs);3×5(275lbs)

SSST(secret service snatch test): 206 snatches