Lower Your Metabolism!

OK, now that we’ve established what your metabolism is, and the manners in which it can be raised, let’s make sure we can put that information to use and get its’ full benefits. The way to do that is to avoid some all too common mistakes that may negate your progress, or worse, actually lower your metabolism.

The following are the best two ways to lower your metabolism. Please avoid them!

• Don’t move.

This is by far the best way to lower your resting metabolic rate. When you don’t expend any energy, your body doesn’t want to use any, so it lowers your metabolism to meet your lack of activity.

This is why I tell people all the time this is the best way to lose pounds. Just sit on the couch and do NOTHING. You won’t burn any calories, so your body will lower your metabolic rate so you won’t feel the need to eat any calories and you’ll waste away and be one of those skinny fat people. Enjoy.

That actually leads to #2…

• Don’t eat frequently enough

When your body goes for a sustained period of time with no food (usually around 4-6 hours) it goes into starvation mode. This is a self - defense mechanism by the body to avoid starvation designed to keep you alive. Your metabolism doesn’t know you may eat something later – it assumes you won’t, and it stops using energy, and stops burning…calories…COMPLETELY. One of the best ways to bring your metabolism to a screeching halt is to starve yourself.  Then, you'll also have the mood and the personality to go along with your great “skinny fat” look.

And although it may not lower your metabolism, the best way to keep it nice and low is to…

• Waste your time with exercise that is not intense

Exercise that is moderate or low in intensity can be a deleterious, crippling factor to your metabolism. Although it technically may not lower your metabolic rate, it certainly takes a lot of time and takes you away from more beneficial activities that you can be doing to raise your metabolism.

Before we move on, let’s get a few things out of the way quickly:  Typially this is the point in the discussion where peoples’ opinions begin to differ with mine and like to point out a few very common rebuttals to my statements. The rebuttals always come at this point in the discussion because nobody had a problem with what I wrote in part 1, where we defined metabolism, or in part 2 where I told you how your metabolism can be raised. They have a problem at this point because of one reason:

They don’t like what I have to say – period.

They either a)want their own opinion validated, and are pissed when I don’t do that, or b) realize what I’m saying they need to do is hard work – real hard work and they just aren’t willing to do it, and would rather choose the easy way out.

For discussions’ sake I’m going to need you to pick out a low intensity exercise to fill in the blank below. It can be anything – jogging, yoga, hiking, whatever. Generally, if it takes more than 20 minutes to do, you can use it for our discussion. I’m going to use jogging as my example. I hate to always pick on jogging, but it’s just the most common choice for most people, so I’ll go with it. And again, if you do any of those things, don’t take it personally, it doesn’t make you a bad person if you do it for fun or competition. But if you’re doing those things to become lean…

Common rebuttal #1: “Well, when I jog, it IS intense, hard, makes me sweat, etc. so it must be raising my metabolism.”

Answer: No, it’s not intense. There is an inverse relationship between intensity and duration of exercise. This is a matter of physics not open to debate. This is why the fastest people in the world can only be at their fastest for a matter of seconds. The longer they run, the more they have to slow down. The intensity must decrease in order for them to continue running. Therefore, any extended run, by definition, is NOT intense.

Common rebuttal #2: “Well at least I’m doing something – that’s better than doing nothing.”

Answer: If you want to reduce it to the lowest common denominator, sure, doing something is better than nothing. But if I said to you all I had to eat today was a Big Mac, you would say that was stupid. But then if I said, “Well it’s better than eating nothing!” It’s still stupid.

Common rebuttal #3: “Jogging is fun/I enjoy it.”

Answer: That’s fine if you do something for enjoyment, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re discussing the best way to burn calories and your way is not the best way.

Common rebuttal #4: “So many people jog, it must do something.”

Answer: A lot of people smoke pot too, that won’t raise their metabolism either.

Common rebuttal #6: “Well, your workouts are 1 hour, how can they be intense?”

Answer: Technically we do 5 separate workouts in one hour at The Training Rim. We do a mobility workout, a core workout, two separate strength workouts and a conditioning workout, all with breaks in between. This is how we keep the intensity up, and is why our members resting metabolic rates rise.

To recap all 3 parts of the Metabolism articles:

Many people just don’t want to accept the fact that getting results from exercise is HARD. Raising your resting metabolic rate is HARD. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And as I’ve said plenty of times previously, I’m like Morpheus in The Matrix: I’m not here to BS you – I’m here to tell you the truth. And if you want to live in denial or if you really don’t want results from exercise that’s fine, it doesn’t make you a bad person – we’ll still be friends. Take the blue pill and believe what you want to believe.

But if you want results from exercise, I’m going to need you to take the red pill. Welcome to the real world with the knowledge the truth will set you free.

Your Metabolism Part 2: How To Raise It

Now that we know what the metabolism is, you can see its importance on how you look and feel. You can also see why it’s so important you raise yours. But, in case you don’t:

Let’s say for discussion’s sake, I order an entire pizza. Yep, a whole pie – just for me. You watch me eat the first seven slices. Then as I grab the 8th, I pause and ask you:

“How many calories do you think are in this slice of pizza?”

Your response, I hope, would be something along the lines of: “Uh, it really doesn’t matter, Jon. You just ate SEVEN. The eighth one doesn’t really make too much of a difference.”

This is exactly how I feel when people ask me “How many calories does this workout burn?”

It’s never even occurred to me to ask how many calories a particular workout burns – the thought never enters my mind until someone asks. The reason, I hope is obvious at this point: because just the way that one slice of pizza was a very small portion of the whole, that one hour of exercise is a very small part of the whole day. In fact there are 23 other hours in the day, so anyone who implies there is real importance to the number of calories burned during a workout doesn’t really get the “big picture” concept. And as usual, if it comes from an exerciser who doesn’t know better – no big deal, that’s why we’re here. But if a fitness professional has discussions with you about how many calories their workouts burn, you need to get another fitness professional.

Instead, your focus MUST be on THE IMPACT YOUR WORKOUT HAS ON YOUR METABOLISM. If your workout can raise your resting metabolic rate, then you will be burning more calories over 24 hours every single day. I think you’ll agree that’s probably a better focus than to just worry about doing a workout that burns “X” calories, but doesn’t do anything to raise your metabolic rate (RMR).

So then the obvious question is “What can raise your metabolic rate?”

For the sake of simplicity and this article, you’ll need to focus on three things that you can do to raise your resting metabolic rate:

1. Exercise intensely. Yes, I understand intense is a relative term, but you need to find what’s intense for you and you need to get there. A good rule of thumb is if it you think it’s enjoyable, it’s probably not intense. Frankly, in most cases it should be God awful. But this kind of misery reaps rewards: this rise in intensity forces your resting metabolism to rise along with it. Your body is going to start processing and utilizing energy very quickly and very efficiently to meet the demands you’re placing on it in the gym.

2. Exercise consistently. Once in awhile won’t cut it. That’s just beating the hell out of yourself for no good reason. Only when you exercise consistently will your metabolism adapt, rise, and stay risen.


3. Eat often. Notice I didn’t say “Eat A LOT”. I said eat OFTEN. When you ingest calories your body uses them quickly. By eating frequently you’re sending a message to your metabolism that it’s going to continue getting calories and it will respond by continually burning calories. It’s only when you don’t eat often enough that your body stops burning calories (more on this later).

So today’s take home messages kids: Worry about how many calories your metabolism burns over 24 hours, not how many your workout does in one. Workout out consistently and intensely and eat often.

Following these tenets may never get you to being an uber calorie burning machine like a high level athlete, but it will increase your own RMR.  Even a slight increase of 25 or 50 calories per day adds up to A LOT of calories not getting stored on your waist over the course of the year.

Stay tuned for part 3 where we’ll discuss habits to avoid that will lower your metabolism. Anyone want to venture a guess as to what may be on the list?

Don't worry, there won't be any more pizza references.

EVERYTHING Is About Your Metabolism

Part 1:

This is the first part of a series of articles designed to explain to you perhaps the most important aspect of the exercise world: your metabolism. Your metabolism, to a large degree, is the largest contributing factor to your success in how you look and feel. Your health, appearance, strength and aesthetics are largely dictated by your metabolism.


Pretty simple so far, right? Well here’s the problem as I’ve come to understand it: In spite of its importance and its simplicity, most people don’t even know what their metabolism is or what it does. And when I say “most people”, I mean most people who exercise. The exact people who should be concerned about their metabolism, what it does and how it can be affected brush it aside as a physiological concept that doesn’t need to be understood. Or worse: there are many who have no clue what it is or does, but pretend they do which predictably leads to them getting zero results.

Knowing what your metabolism is and how it can be affected will make decision making much easier when it comes to how you should exercise and how you should eat.

Let’s start by defining what your metabolism is. For the sake of this article, your metabolism will be referred to as your “resting metabolic rate” or “RMR”. Your resting metabolic rate is the number of calories you would expend over 24 hours AT REST. So if you did nothing but stare at the wall for 24 hours, your body would use “X” number of calories to perform basic life functions – this is your RMR. For the sake of this discussion we’re going to assume your RMR is 2,000 calories.

Important note: Calories burned from activity DO NOT COUNT toward your RMR.

So again, for argument sake, let’s say your RMR is 2,000 calories per day – you will burn 2,000 calories if you do absolutely nothing. You then exercise, go to work, walk your dog, etc. throughout the day that burns an additional 1,200 calories for a total of 3,200 for the day: That 1,200 DOES NOT count toward your RMR. Your metabolism is only what YOU burn without activity.

OK, so now that we know what your metabolism (RMR) is, let’s get to the good part: Let’s discuss what can raise your metabolism and what can lower it, so you know what you should be doing and what you should be not doing.

And before we continue, let’s get one thing perfectly clear:

Yes, it is true that age and genetics are factors in how high or low your metabolism is. An elite level uber-athlete may have a RMR of 4,000. An older couch potato may have a RMR of 800. But here’s the good news:

No matter what your resting metabolic rate is, IT CAN BE IMPROVED. It is possible to be burning more calories just sitting and reading this article. Which is why we have this T-shirt at The TR:

Chess and Hard Abs

You know I love analogies, so bear with me:

A guy comes to you and says he wants to be the baddest ass Chess player on the planet. He is going to work his tail off every afternoon with the goal of becoming a great Chess player. He decides to tell you about the program he’s following:

On Monday he played chess. On Wednesday he played checkers. On Friday he played backgammon. Saturday morning he woke up and had a solid round of Scrabble.

Now I ask you, after one week, is he any better of a chess player? No, of course he isn’t.

Is he an idiot? Probably, yeah.

Obviously, he’s not going to get better at chess unless he plays a lot of CHESS, and does other activities that support that goal, like reading books about chess or watching chess experts play games. Playing chess once per week while doing other things that have nothing to do with chess the rest of the week isn’t going to help, and I don’t think anybody would disagree with me on that.

But I’ve found that the overwhelming majority of exercisers, and sadly exercise professionals, still insist on constant variance in workouts similar to the aforementioned learning impaired chess player. But unlike the chess player who we all agree is going nowhere, it’s perfectly acceptable in the exercise world to “mix things up”.

If I’ve learned one thing over the last couple of years, it’s this: Constantly performing different workouts will not get you results. Designing a program and sticking with it will.

Jesus, even those jackasses that do P90X get results because it’s a 90 day program to which they adhere. Of course, the sore knees and weak asses are a result of shitty programming, not the exercisers fault.

I just recently read The Talent Code, which was a great and insightful read. One of the important take home points is that no one ever became great at something doing it a couple of times half assed. Also, no one became great at anything by doing the activity often, but poorly.
People in all walks of life get results by deliberately repeating a sequence over and over while paying close attention to the mistakes they make along the way. Then they stop, correct the mistakes, and do it again. This is repeated until the task can be performed almost automatically and mistake free.

When you make a mistake in one activity, then go on to another activity and make a mistake there, then try a different activity and make a mistake there, you’re only assuring yourself of one thing: You won't be good at any of them.

It’s the same with exercise: if you do workout “A” on Monday, then workout “B” on Wednesday, then workout “C” on Friday you’re only cementing the fact you’ll suck at all of them, because you’ll never see, learn from, and correct your mistakes.

If you want to be lean and strong you need to follow a program that’s designed for maintenance of muscle tissue and loss of body fat. Then you need to repeat that program over, and over, and over, etc…

That doesn’t mean don’t adjust the program as you go. It means follow the program. It can and will always be made more difficult as you improve. Even a program as simple as pushups, pull-ups and body weight squats can be progressed dozens of ways to provide more of a challenge as you progress from your previous workouts.

At The Training Rim, our small group session members follow a three month undulating periodization model. That’s people who workout as a GROUP, have a template to follow ensuring they’ll get better at key exercises that promote total body strength and caloric expenditure, without wasting their time on something that they’ll never do or see again. (It’s funny to think that many personal trainers can’t or won’t do that for their personal training clients. If you know a trainer like that, it’s time to get a new trainer.) And if you're curious about whether or not TR members get bored without "mixing it up" (insert eye roll), they responded "It's fun" overwhelmingly as the number one answer when asked why they stay at the TR.

If you want to be great at chess, play chess. Backgammon and checkers won’t help.

If you want to be lean and strong, get a simple plan and follow it deliberately and relentlessly. Don’t worry: hard glutes await you at the end.

23 Hours Per Day

I was in Rhode Island this summer for a seminar where I listened to the leaders of my industry discuss my profession for three days. It really was super cool - I learned tons of new things. But perhaps more importantly I was reminded of the significance of things I already knew, but maybe haven’t been reinforcing enough with all of you.

For example, one of the things we all know is there are three aspects to being lean, strong and healthy:

1. Efficient exercise.
2. Recovering from exercise (and your daily routine).
3. Nutrition.

And in spite of what many people think, number one is the LEAST important of the three.

Least important doesn’t mean unnecessary, because exercise is mandatory whether you like it or not. It’s just lower on the food chain than the other two. And its impact on your health related goals drops significantly if the other two are not addressed relentlessly.

Think about it: the hardest core of the hard core members in my facility get in here 4-5 times per week to workout. Average is about 2-3 times per week. So even the most dedicated client spend less than 3% of their time in our facility with supervised workouts – most are supervised about 1% of the time. (2 hours per week here = 166 hours per week elsewhere = .012%)

Now I’m not real good at math, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the other 97-99% of the time during the week without the TR plays a pretty big factor in your success with regards to your fitness regimen. (On a side note, did you notice I wrote “regimen”, not “regiment”? Drives me insane when people say “regiment” when they mean “regimen”. ‘Hey Jon, can you put me on an exercise regiment?’ Uh, no, I’m not military personnel…thank you…) I digress.

So if you know for sure you’re exercising efficiently, and you’re not getting the results you like, you may be neglecting the other two aspects of your regimen: recovery and nutrition.

Don’t worry; today we have some advice for you to address the needs of the other 23 hours of the day as well as your exercise needs:

How to improve your recovery:

· Sleep: do your best to get it. I know you don’t have ultimate control over this but do your best.
· Tissue recovery: get a foam roller and use it.
· Stress: don’t have it. Stress affects you physically too. Make sure you’re not sweating the small stuff.

How to improve your nutrition:

· Drink water: a lot.
· Cut the crap: eat healthy foods.
· Don’t over eat: if you have one more calorie than your body needs it will be stored.
Probably in an unsightly place.
· Don’t under eat: if you’re exercising consistently your body has a lot of rebuilding and re-fueling to do. Make sure you eat soon after your workout and in small portions consistently throughout the day.

Remember, if you’re exercising efficiently that is awesome, you should be proud of yourself. But you need to remember there are another 23 hours or so per day that are going to affect whether or not you get results. Be efficient those 23 hours too!

Hey Tough Guy. Yes, YOU.

You know who you are. The guy who goes to the gym and likes to “lift heavy”. The guy who wants to be “big and strong”. Yes, you.

(Or if that’s not you, I am 100% sure you know someone like this. The person who wants big muscles and goes about it by just putting as much weight as they can on a bench and uses the bench’s support to move the weight. You know the guy. He thinks anything that isn’t a barbell or a dumbbell is “for women”.)

Well, I have news for you Mr. Still trying to pretend you’re Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian from 1982. Uugghhh…the fact that a new Conan movie is out is only going to aggravate the situation.

Here’s the deal, tough stuff: all those things that you think are for girls will make you bigger and stronger.

As usual, you can disagree with me – but you’d be wrong…again.

I’ll break it down for you:

Getting big and strong, to a large degree is due to the amount of weight you can move. It’s not rocket science. If you can dumbbell curl heavier dumbbells than you used to, your biceps will get bigger. If you can shoulder press heavier dumbbells than you used to, your shoulders will get bigger, etc.

So then following that logic, it should go without saying, if your body can physically hold and support heavier dumbbells, barbells, etc., your ability to use heavier weight for your curls and presses increases.

Now what do you think allows someone to hold and support more weight?

Ding! Ding! Ding! That’s right, your core! Or, the lumbo-pelvic hip complex to those of us who train at the TR. Good job, maybe you’re not such a meat head after all! The stronger your hips and abs are, the more weight you can grab and support.

OK, now stay with me: if a stronger core allows you to hold and support more weight, and moving more weight gives you bigger muscles, then total body core training will get you bigger muscles, right?!?!?! (Once again, not rocket science...) And, no, “doing abs” is NOT core training. You’ll need to improve the stabilization of your lumbar spine, and the mobility of your hips.

Yes, now I’m going to use the “F” word…

Your core needs “Functional” training. I know it’s a dirty word nowadays. I know it’s cooler to mock what you don’t understand and flip a truck tire over instead of admitting you can’t do one body weight pushup. I know the guy at the gym with acne all over his back tells you that you don’t need functional training, but trust me: you do if you want to get stronger.

If you can get your abs to stabilize your spine, and if you can train your hips to be mobile and strong, you can support and hold more weight. If you can hold and support more weight, you can train heavier and get bigger muscles – period.

And because I know you’re probably moving your lips and mouthing these words as you read this, I’ll slow down and say it again:

Improve the function of your hips and abs = hold heavier weight.

Hold heavier weight = move heavier weight when training arms, shoulders, etc.

Move heavier weight when training = bigger muscles.

Bottom line: If you want to get bigger and stronger, you’re selling yourself short if you don’t improve the functionality of your hips and abdominals. Just ask your wife who trains at the TR when she’s carrying in all the heavy stuff from Costco that you're unable to lift without your back hurting.

And a final note on Jason Momoa (or Chris Evans, or Dwayne Johnson, or whatever muscular celebrity is in whatever magazine next week telling you they use split body part routines to get big): Celebrities have access to things you do not, such as a) 15 - 20 hours per week to work out, b) professional nutritionists, cooks, and cleaning people. c) steroids.

When you have access to all those things then you can train like them. Until then, listen to the pros at the TR.

Here's Jason Momoa a.k.a. "Khal Drago", a.k.a., "Conan" looking not quite as big and muscular as he did on "Game of Thrones".

Big, Hard and Round Brains!

“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” - Thomas Carruthers

I know you’re probably tired of me gushing about the members of the TR. I’m always going on about how hard they work, how easily they do difficult things, and how they have fun doing it.
You’re tired of me telling you about my client with no previous endurance training or competition background finishing in the top 5% in his 1st “Tough Mudder” competition.

Apparently 2 times per week at the TR gets you in better shape than what 95% of people who do endurance training do to get in shape.

I know you’re tired of me telling you about women in their 30’s and 40’s who have kids or jobs or both in many cases, swinging kettlebells between 60 and 80 lbs.

So today I’m going to tell you a new thing about my clients I love: their brains.

For example: these are topics of conversation that have been overheard at the TR amongst its members:

· Spinal kyphosis and lordosis.
· Scapular retraction, depression and downward rotation.
· The malleolus and tibial tuberosity.
· Undulating periodization.
· Negative work to rest ratios.

Seriously.

Over the last 20 years I’ve probably spent time in about 15 – 20 exercise facilities either as a member or a trainer. And I’m having trouble remembering a conversation about the above topics between TWO TRAINERS. Never mind members talking about this stuff: I’ve never heard FITNESS PROFESSIONALS (ahem, cough, cough…) discussing this stuff unless I was one of the trainers in the conversation.

And this is what I’m proud of: At The Training Rim we don’t discuss this stuff because we want to impress people with big words. We do it because we want to empower our members. Their empowerment through their knowledge increases their chances of getting leaner, stronger, healthier, and better looking.

If you understand the “why” behind our interval training, you’re less likely to waste time doing silly shit like long duration cardio on your own.

If you understand the “why” behind our core training, you’ll be less likely to waste your time “doing abs” like the other learning impaired individuals at Globo Gym.

Bottom line: the more you know, the more likely you are to get results. The more you train at a facility that considers it an obligation to educate you, the more likely you are to get results.

Which brings me back to the quote at the top of the page. We consider educating our members part of our job here at The Training Rim. We don’ think beating the holy hell out of them until they puke is our job. Nor do we feel coddling them and telling them it’s OK to exert minimal effort in your “workout” and call it exercise. It’s our job to get them to improve. (Which is why “Always Improve” is Training Rim tenet #1 and on the wall at our facility). Knowledge helps get you there. And although I hope I never become completely unnecessary, I do take pride in telling my clients they have rendered me “superfluous” when they’re in the middle of destroying yet another circuit, in part because of thier knowledge. It means we’re all doing our jobs and getting stuff done.

(*On a side note, admittedly the conversation about the malleolous only came up because someone accidentally slammed theirs into a kettlebell – which kinda’ hurt.)

I think if this guy used a HeadBlade, this is how my clinets view me.

Your Bank Account

Recently I asked a few people to review their resolutions from this past January as we just passed the halfway point of 2011. As I did this I reviewed my own goals and an interesting analogy struck me:

It seems that with few exceptions, people make resolutions around either fitness or financial goals. And in an odd way, the modus operandi for successful attainment of these resolutions is almost identical in scope.

When doing financial planning, you simply need to understand the concept that your deposits need to be larger than your withdrawals. If you accumulate more money than you spend, your net worth will increase. If you spend more money than you accumulate, your net worth will decrease. Pretty simple stuff: you don’t need to be an economics professor from MIT to understand it. The tough part is however, having the discipline to implement and track it.

It’s almost EXACTLY the same with fitness. Your level of fitness is almost entirely made up of a series of deposits and withdrawals. Just because the denominations are less tangible than money, doesn’t make them any less important or less measureable.

For example, I worked out today. Nothing fancy: just some foam rolling, some lower body strength work and some conditioning circuits involving ropes and sandbags. I view that as a deposit.

Now if I recover well today by drinking plenty of fluids, eating several small portions of high quality foods, and then go to bed early and get a good nights’ sleep, that’s another deposit. If I have 365 days like that, my fitness goals will easily be reached. I will have made a ton of deposits with no withdrawals - my fitness bank account will be in the same condition as my financial bank account would be if I made deposits all year with no withdrawals.

But not making withdrawals is not practical with either finances or fitness. As I’ve said one million times to my clients: there are times life is going to get in the way of your workout plans. As long as you limit it to minor setbacks however, it won’t be a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

For example: Your boss made you stay late at work so you weren’t able to work out as you planned to. That’s a withdrawal. Or your mother makes you a kick ass dessert when you visit and you don’t want to be rude to your mom and not eat her dessert that she slaved over to make you happy – that’s another withdrawal. Or if you meet up with some friends and that salad with low fat oil and vinegar on the side with your glass of tap water just isn’t cutting it. Especially not when they’re having food and drinks that taste good (and they’re having a lot of them!), so you decide to have some nachos and throw back a few with them – another withdrawal. What your common withdrawals are don’t matter, as long as they aren’t constant and consistent. Same as when you splurge occasionally with your money – not a big deal as long as it’s not all the time.

So the issue is this: at the end of the year, will your exercise deposits out number your exercise withdrawals? If the answer is yes, then you’ll be going in the right fitness direction. Just as you would be if your financial deposits outnumbered your financial withdrawals.

Some more examples and a WARNING:

Some deposits and withdrawals are bigger than others, start thinking of them as such. For example:

· A couple of slices of pizza? Small withdrawal.

· A couple of slices of pizza after a plate of buffalo wings and followed by baked ziti washed down with a few beers? BIG withdrawal.

· Some planks, pushups and foam rolling on days in between planned program workouts? Small deposit.

· A planned workout as part of a larger program that includes mobility, core stabilization, strength training and conditioning? BIG deposit. Keep making deposits like this one and your fitness bank account will grow pretty quickly!

Warning: Beware of bad investments!

There are many activities that may appear to be deposits that are actually bad investments. Think of them the same way you would as if you bought stock in company that’s going to go under. For example:

· Not eating often enough. This appears to reap immediate benefits because of the caloric restriction, but your metabolism will lower to compensate pretty quickly, which will worsen your situation. Consider it like investing in Borders.

· Jogging. Jogging is like buying stock in Blockbuster: Feels good when you got up and running, but eventually you’re going to crash. Statistically speaking, you’re going to be injured and you’re not going to lose body fat.

· Starting a crash/restrictive/fad diet. There’s just no way to stick to it if you’re a real person with a job, spouse, kids, etc. This is a waste of your fitness energy and resources - you may as well just toss cash out the window of your moving car.

If you’re interested in improving your fitness levels, my advice is to start looking at your habits as investments, deposits and withdrawals. Eventually, with sound planning and sound implementation you’ll be going in the right direction and you’ll get where you want to go.

This is Leigh: She's made PLENTY of withdrawals into her anti-extension account.

The Weight Is NOT Too Heavy!

Today we have a quick observation of a mistake made way too often that I haven’t seen anyone else jump on yet. I notice this mistake A LOT, and like most things, I don’t really understand the logic behind it.

That is the automatic assumption that if and exercise cannot be performed, that the weight must be too heavy. And this leads to the larger issue: the exerciser simply choosing a lighter weight instead of correcting the manner in which the exercise was being performed.

Now, I ask you, my educated fitness friends, what has this accomplished? Ding! Ding! Ding! You got it: It’s made the exercise MORE dangerous because now it can actually be performed incorrectly! The exercise couldn’t be executed with the heavy weight because the form sucked, not because the weight was too heavy (which is the message that typically goes unnoticed…)

Now of course there are instances where the weight may be too heavy, but I think they are in the minority – I think it’s more likely you have to check your form 1st. If your form is perfect and the weight can’t be moved, then go down in weight. But check yourself 1st, as it’s most likely not a weight problem, it’s more likely an operator problem as we like to say here at the TR.

Check out this video: I go into a little more specificity and give you the always helpful visual aid!

http://www.youtube.com/user/thetrainingrim#p/a/u/0/uv4_1oYDrXw

You think his problem is the weight is too heavy? Try again...

The Cure For Joint Pain

Of course there is no cure for joint pain, but there are preventative measures that we can take to greatly reduce the chances of getting shoulder/knee/back discomfort. Last I heard 4 out of 5 of us will suffer from shoulder/back/knee issues at some point while exercising, so pay attention:

It seems, in my experience anyway; in the overwhelming majority of cases of joint pain, preventative measures were not taken. Pretty much anytime someone tells me they have knee, back, or shoulder pain, the “cause” comes directly from one of two very preventable issues:

1. The exerciser is doing something wrong.
2. The exerciser is doing too much.


The good news is that both of those issues are easy to address.

First, if you’re doing something wrong:

Double and triple check if you are moving in the correct manner. Are you squatting correctly? I.e., are your toes forward, are your knees in line with your toes, are you flexing at the hips instead of the lower back? When you push or pull are your shoulders staying retracted instead of rolling forward? Is your mid-section stabilized as opposed to flexing and extending?

In many cases, exercisers think they are using correct form when they are not, either due to ignorance, inattentiveness, or poor previous instruction. This is why it’s crucial to both learn correct movement, and pay attention to your movement as you exercise.

Secondly, joint pain can come from doing too much.

“Too much” can mean a few different things from an exercise standpoint: Too many workouts, too many reps, too much weight, too difficult of an exercise, etc. Essentially, you’ve given your body a greater workload than it can handle and joint pain is its way of telling you that you need to back off a little.

In these cases, joint pain prevention is simple – use common sense. Know your limits and understand the phrase “no pain, no gain” was uttered by a learning impaired individual.

In the non-exercise world of real life, "too much" can mean numerous things: too much driving, too much working, too much gardening, landscaping, shoveling, etc.

Of course, I need to add the caveat that people doing too much in the exercise world seems to be the exception. Too much more commonly means too much sitting, too much eating, etc. So explore the option you may be doing too much in your workouts only if you actually work out a lot. If you don’t work out a lot, give it a shot.

Don't be this A-Hole.

Get Results With Simple Gym Math

Don’t worry, I hate math too. I live with a high school math teacher and I just don’t get it. But unlike those dopey kids who we went to school with who used to always moan “When are we ever going to need to do this stuff?!?!” I, at least, despite my distaste for it, recognize that math is not only useful, but necessary in day to day life.

How does this relate to you getting strong and lean? Very easily, my friend.

If you’ve followed us at all over the last few years, you know that we’re always screaming about what a waste of times gyms are. Statistically speaking, if you want to get in good shape, gyms are one of the last places you should go because it’s been proven you probably won’t get stronger or leaner there.

Well it wasn’t until I sat down and did some simple math that I realized the extent to which gyms are useless.

Play along with me: Think of people you know or have seen at the gym that are in really good shape. People that you look at and say “Wow, I wouldn’t mind being like him/her!” Using the gym I used to be in as a reference, I’m thinking maybe 25 people fall into that category. I would say I knew about 25 people in gym “X” that I would say were in really good shape.

And using my former gym “X” as a reference, there were approximately 9,000 members. I know this because they couldn’t stop telling everybody how great they were because they had so many members.

Now the plot thickens, and it’s time to put that math to use:

Approximately 25 people out of approximately 9,000 members = approximately .002778% of people who have memberships actually are in good shape.

That’s less than one percent. In fact, it’s not even close to ONE percent.

OK, let’s say my memory is off. There were actually twice as many people in gym “X” in really good shape as I remember.

That’s still less than one percent.

OK, let’s be even more of a skeptic: there are three times as many people in really good shape at big box gym than I remember.

That’s STILL LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF ITS MEMBERS THAT ARE IN REALLY GOOD SHAPE.

I know what some of you smart alecks are saying: “Well, Jon, a lot of those members you’re counting don’t actually go to the gym, which is why they don’t get in shape. They shouldn’t be counted.”

I’m going to disagree with you my friend because you have it backwards: They don’t go to the gym BECAUSE THE GYM DOESN’T GET THEM IN SHAPE!!! Their gym sucks. It’s not fun, it’s ineffectual and it’s filled with assholes. Of course people are going to stop showing up!

Nobody ever joined a gym with the intention of not going. They joined, they tried it, then they said “This sucks,” then they stopped going – not the other way around.

Now I’m not sure of the statistics off the top of my head, but at The Training Rim people who have fun outnumber those who don’t. Members who attend and train regularly outnumber those who don’t. And people who are in great shape are the general rule, not the exception.

Remember: if you go to the gym and don’t get results, it’s not your fault. If your friend is always whining about going to the gym and not getting results, it’s not his or her fault.

The lack of results is the gym’s fault. Gyms don't work. Here endeth the lesson.

Muscle Confusion?

Muscle Confusion? I’m confused.

Recently the term “muscle confusion” has become popular. I’m not really sure who to blame for this.

First of all, muscles do not have brains therefore they do not get confused. Muscles receive messages from your brain then react. That’s it. There’s no higher order deductive reasoning going on in the sarcomeres of your muscle tissue.

People who use the term muscle confusion act is if they saw a muscle reading a philosophy book once and were able to mentally outmaneuver it.

This is what I hear when someone says they use muscle confusion:

“Hey – my bicep thought I was going to make it contract by doing a barbell curl. But I fooled it – I made it contract by doing a dumbbell curl! Ha ha ha! I sure outwitted my bicep! Woo Hoo!”

And back to reading the latest muscle magazine with the big pictures you go my friend.

I’m not really sure what is meant by muscle confusion, but I know ultimately it just means doing random crap. Do one thing, then do another, then another with no rhyme or reason. Don’t have a plan, neither short nor long term by which to go. Mix your strength training with your corrective exercise, your corrective exercise with your conditioning, your conditioning with your core work, your core work with your flexibility, your flexibility with whatever – it’ll all work out. As long as it looks cool and has a cool name.

I’ve learned many things in my career, and one of the most important things I’ve ever learned is this:

When it comes to exercise and conditioning, randomness should be avoided at all costs.

Understand that your plan will probably need to be tweaked – but have a plan.

There are no important gains in exercise that don’t take tons of practice and diligence. Nobody anywhere in life made significant progress on something either important or difficult without practicing their arses off. Don’t believe me? Read “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell.

Diligence and practice should not be confused with repetitiveness, monotony, and tedium, however. It only means something should be mastered before moving on. Trust me: there are dozens of ways to make a push up tougher if you think you’re good at them.

And remember as far as exercise goes, if it comes easy, you’re probably wasting your time. Stick with what you’re doing as long as you’re progressing. If you’re getting results, don’t change anything.

For example, the program I had written for my small group clients was supposed to change on the first of the month. The problem with that was that everyone was still progressing on that program, so why change it - because we want our muscles to be confused? That sounds like something that someone who sells DVD’s for a living would tell you. A professional trainer – you know someone who actually trains people for a living – would say ‘let’s stick with what’s working’.

This is why you need experienced, educated exercise professionals. Not people who watched DVD’s as their educational resource and not people who think beating the crap out of you a different way today than they did the last workout is exercise programming. Any moron can do those things for you. Find somebody who’s read a book. Find someone who’s read articles on programming individuals and groups.

Or, even better, find someone who’s written those books and articles and train at their facility.

Fat Burning? Really?

First off, two apologies:


I apologize if you’re already aware that the “Fat Burning Zone” is a myth. I, like you, thought it hadn’t been taken seriously since the 1980’s. Unfortunately due to more than one recent discussion, I’ve learned this fallacy is alive and well in the exercise community.

I apologize if you believe this nonsense and feel my anger is directed towards you. It’s directed at the knucklehead fitness pro who communicated it to you whose job it is to know better.


The “Fat Burning Zone”, according to its proponents, is a heart rate of between 60-65% of your maximum heart rate. (This presumably is following the guide that your maximum heart rate can be calculated by subtracting your age from 220. The BS that is THAT calculation will be covered some other time.) The proponents and followers of the fat burning zone argue that a relatively low heart rate such as 60-65%, causes your body to burn a greater percentage of calories from fat, thereby increasing fat loss and weight loss.


Problem #1: Following that logic, sitting on the couch watching football is better for me than a circuit of kettlebell swings. Watching football will elevate my heart rate slightly above normal, thereby burning a high percentage of fat calories. An intense circuit of kettlebell swings may get my heart rate up to 180 beats per minute, or pretty close to my maximum. According to the fat burning zone, the kettlebell circuit won’t cause me to lose as much fat as watching football. Uh…OK…


Problem #2: You know how people who are trying to conserve energy always tell you to drive your car more slowly because you’ll save gas? Well you’re body works the same way: if you move slowly, you use less energy. The problem is this: saving gas in your car is a good thing. Saving and storing energy in your body is a bad thing. There is a name for stored energy in your body: it’s called FAT. Drive your car slowly, but move your body quickly – when your body runs out of gas, you’re doing pretty well with your workout.


Problem #3: The concept is short sighted. Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that your body will use more fat for energy when your heart rate is low. You’re still burning way fewer total calories by keeping the intensity down. For example, workout A is trying to get you to burn more calories from fat. Workout A is walking for 30 minutes. Workout A says you’ll burn 100 calories and 50% will be from fat for a grand total of 50 calories burned using fat as an energy source. Workout B is an interval circuit alternating between kettlebell swings and rope slams for 10 minutes. It burns a total of 200 calories and only 40% are from fat for a total of 80 calories burned using fat as an energy source.


Workout B burned 100 more total calories, with 30 more of them coming from stored energy sources (fat), and took 20 minutes less incidentally. But of course, a higher percentage of the minute number of calories came from fat in workout A. Whoop de damn doo – the person doing workout B burned more total calories, more calories from fat, and had an extra 20 minutes in their day.


Now tell me again why the intensity needs to be kept low?


Truthfully, I don’t know the answer to this. I think it still stems from our society’s way for looking for the expedient route instead of the correct route. Walking is easy. Slamming ropes is hard. Let’s look for an excuse to walk. A seated chest press machine is easy. Pushups are not. Let’s sell memberships by showing people our “machines” with soft seats.


Whatever the case may be, you’ll have a tough time convincing me, or any of my clients that doing less work is better for fat loss.

Research?!? C'mon...

“Men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience.” - Aristotle

The longer I’m in my field, the more I realize the above statement is true. Theoretical research comes out every day in the world of health and exercise that makes me go “huh?!?” This isn’t the problem to me but rather the likelihood that someone who doesn’t do what I do for a living will see the news report about the research and go running with it, assuming it’s valid and/or applicable to their personal situation, when it probably isn’t.

Recently I saw a news report about a study suggesting that eating breakfast isn’t that important as it relates to weight loss and health issues as people previously believed. The study mentioned that people that skip breakfast don’t necessarily eat more throughout the rest of the day, and therefore don’t take in more calories on a whole.

I’ll preface my reaction to this report with this: All research can be called into question. Typically research is performed to validate an opinion. Generally speaking, if the opinion isn’t proven correct, people don’t run around yelling “Look! I was wrong! I was wrong!” More often, they design the study to prove their point and run to the news with it if they’re opinion was validated. And of course, if it’s even a little bit controversial the media will scream it from the rafters in order to get us to watch. This is magnified exponentially if the research is funded by a company that has a financial interest in the outcome of the research.

In this particular case, the researchers had a theory that people who don’t eat breakfast don’t eat more through the day and wanted to show they are correct. What was not mentioned in the news report is countless other research, both subjective and objective, that suggests that even if that is true, it doesn’t take into account other very important factors to your health.

Even if you are not eating more by skipping breakfast, you surely are burning fewer calories by skipping breakfast. You’re body is already in a form of fasting mode 1st thing in the morning because you haven’t eaten since the night before at best. This brings your metabolism to a screeching halt – when your body doesn’t get food, it doesn’t burn food because it thinks it’s starving – it does this as a defense mechanism. Skipping breakfast only exacerbates this situation, and forces your body to lower the number of calories you’ll burn.

Am I saying discount all research and theoretical studies? Of course not. Many great societal progressions have come from studies like this.

I am saying however that research studies are simply a tool and should be treated as such. Take what is said with a grain of salt, especially if it’s reported through the media.

Far more reliable than theoretical research is real world experience. This is something that many people I trust in my industry have told me, but it becomes more evident and grows more valid every time I think about it.

There is a misconception that working experience is not research. It is. It’s subjective however, so therefore some would have you believe it’s not as valid as “scientific studies”. But as we’ve discussed, they can be pretty subjective as well.

So when push comes to shove, who is more credible? The person in a lab measuring and quantifying statistics with a very small number of people over the course of a few weeks, or, the person who has seen and worked with real people day after day, year after year for decades? I’ll take that 2nd person’s opinion 99 times out of 100. Their observations are priceless because they aren’t theories about what MAY work, the observations are knowledge about what HAS worked in real situations.

It reminds me of the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Two martial artists who believe their fighting style to be superior to all others disagree with each other: Would you believe the guy whose system was never actually used in a real fight, or the guy who actually got in the ring and showed his fighting style worked better than others? Uh, when I’m in a dark alley, I’d rather have the 2nd guy watching my back.

I mention this warning about research because we’ve always believed at The Training Rim that results speak for themselves, whether it coincides with popular ideas and research or not. When there’s a new training methodology out that claims to be superior to all other previous modalities, our response is usually “OK, prove it. And not with mice in a lab – with real people with real jobs, families, homes, social lives etc. If it doesn’t work in that setting then it’s useless information.”

This attitude has worked well for us. We use training methodologies that we know to be effective. We know they’re effective because we’ve been using them for over a decade now and we’ve seen our clients continually get great results.

That beats the hell out of any research study any day of the week to us. If you want to debate the latest ideas and studies go right ahead: by the time you’re done we’ll be wrapping up another workout that’s already been proven to make us stronger and leaner.

In the words of Ron Burgundy, “It’s science.”