Long Term Contracts Got a Bad Rap!

Today’s tip isn’t so much a tip as it is an explanation and hopefully with it some clarity and guidance toward the correct exercise path.  Like most things I write about, I never really thought it was a big enough issue to address, but also like most things, I notice it’s something that comes up A LOT and therefore is a topic on which we should expand, perhaps.

Today’s topic is long term gym contracts.  What does a long term gym membership have to do with your results?  Glad you asked…

Over the last few years long term gym memberships and contracts have taken a bad rap.  This is due (once again) to corporate Globo-Gyms and their inability to deliver results.  Yet, as dumb as they are when it comes to fitness, the owners and operators of Globo-Gyms pay close attention to the numbers that dictate their bottom line. 

One of the things they noticed, is that a typical gym member lasted about six weeks on average.  We all know why – the member liked the look of the place, signed up and started going.  Then somewhere along the line, they noticed that they weren’t getting results and the truth was the gym sucked despite it’s good 1^st impression.  So they would stop going – and stop paying.

Corporate Globo-Gym’s response was to offer only long term contracts.  This way, when the member says “This place sucks – I’mma bounce, yo’”, the gym’s answer would be “Sorry, you signed a contract and you’re going to pay us anyway, even if it’s our fault you aren’t getting results.”

Consumers then became very leery of long term gym memberships and rightfully so – they wouldn’t get results and would have to pay for it anyway.

As a result of the backlash against long term contracts, another business minded response became prevalent: that’s the “No Long Term Contracts” advertisements from fitness facilities – both large and small.  It was announced as a badge of honor that they would never take your money if you didn’t come in and train.  The member could go month to month on the agreement, or in the case of personal training, could buy sessions and pick and choose when to use them, etc.

Guess what that led to?  Members never came in and trained.  And members that don’t train don’t get results either.

If you’re a fitness and exercise consumer, I hope you don’t this as a personal attack, but if I’ve learned anything in my decade plus in this business, it’s this:

As a fitness facility, letting the member decide when, where, and how they will be working out is a prime example of letting the inmates run the asylum.  If the consumer could do this on their own and succeed then they (sit down for this one),  would do it on their own and succeed – they wouldn’t need you in the 1^st place! (Duh…)

More specifically, here’s what we’ve learned at The Training Rim:

Awhile ago, we switched to long term memberships only (we have a 3 month option and a 12 month option – 1 month trials are only for people who are new and aren’t sure if it’s for them or not).  And yes, because I’m a business owner as well, I track the numbers that drive my business too.

Here’s what we found: Members’ training frequency almost doubled when we switched to 3 and 12 month memberships only.  No, that’s not a misprint.  Members were almost TWICE as likely to train on a consistent basis than they were prior to the switch.

The reasons for this of course, are multi-factorial.  There’s obviously a psychological and financial aspect to it among other things.  But the reality is we don’t care about the “why”.  The ONLY thing we care about at The Training Rim is getting people results.  And here is what statistics have told us:

1. People who make commitments are more likely to train consistently.

2. People who train consistently are more likely to get results.

3. People who get results are happier and healthier.

So guess what?  We’re going with this “We’re going to need you to make a commitment, thing”!

Unlike the long term model offered by Globo-gyms, you’re going to like coming here and you’re going to get results.  Our training is backed by years of evidence that it works, and when surveyed about why TR members liked coming to the TR, “It’s fun!” was the overwhelming number 1 answer.

And unlike the “train whenever you want” reactionary trainers who let the inmates run the asylum, we’re going to ask you to make a commitment to us.  Not because we have some overactive ego, but because we know if you make a commitment to us you’re going to get results.  We’re going to hold up our end of the bargain, and we’re going to ask you to do the same.

So when you see a fitness facility that only offers long term contracts, don’t offended by that aspect of their business.  Instead, get offended that they suck at their job.

And when you see the short term, come when you want facility, don’t jump all over it just because there’s no commitment.  Because as we’ve all learned: no commitment = no results.

Instead, find a place that expects you to make a commitment and will hold you to it, assuming their team will hold up its end of the bargain, as we do.

No need to be afraid of this guy - as long as he has a TR logo somewhere on him...

Bruce Lee and The TR!

The longer I’m in the business of figuring out how to get results for people from exercise, the more I notice there are lessons to be learned from all walks of life, not just ones inside the gym.  If you’ve followed my stuff before, you may remember I’ve made correlations to the financial world and the animal kingdom before that contain lessons that will help you improve your level of fitness.  Of course I should note that they were two separate articles: the jokes about correlating the financial world to the animal kingdom would be too easy.

Today I’m going to tell you what Bruce Lee can teach you about how you should approach exercise.

Bruce Lee’s impact on exercise was enormous: reciprocal inhibition was a cutting edge topic in the late 90’s and early 2000’s – Bruce wrote about it in the 1960’s.  Back when the bodybuilding/nautilus machine/Schwarzenegger at Gold’s Gym culture was just taking off, Bruce was the one who called “BS”, and said, if you want to be truly strong – functionally strong – you needed to get off the machines and do total body training.

But it’s not his thoughts on exercise that we’re going to use today – again, that would be too easy.  It’s his philosophy – specifically his philosophy on the martial arts.

Bruce was a huge reader of philosophy, and he used his education to see mistakes others had made in the past, and to formulate new ideologies that would lead to greater success, both in martial arts and in life.

One of these philosophies was the need to stop naming particular martial arts, or calling each art a particular “style”.   He thought it clouded things when we call Kung-Fu, Kung-Fu, and call karate, karate, etc.  He felt it limited the practitioners of each particular style to the strengths of that style only, and in doing so opened up vulnerabilities and weaknesses when outside the realm of that style.

To him, each particular style only worked if you used it against someone who operated within the rules of your style.  Karate, for example lost its effectiveness when a good wrestler didn’t want to play by karate rules and just took the karate fighter down with a wrestling takedown.  Judo lost some effectiveness when someone trained in Muay Thai said: “No, I’m not just going to let you grab me and throw me.”

So Bruce Lee’s point was that you need to know EVERYTHING in order to be a good fighter.  If you painted yourself into a corner by naming your art and insisting it was the best art, ultimately your short sightedness would work against you and limit your progress, both in competition and in life.

It occurred to me one could say this holds true with exercise programming as well.  If you insist on labeling your workout, and limit yourself to the confines thereof, you ultimately will limit your own progress, both in the exercise world and life.

Core training, flexibility, strength training and conditioning are pretty much useless in and of themselves – unless you do all of them.

You need to do everything.  Core training, flexibility training, strength training and cardiovascular conditioning - when combined - present a totality far greater than the sum of the parts.

Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC taught us that Bruce Lee’s theory about fighting was correct: karate, BJJ, Judo, boxing were pretty much useless in and of themselves.  Only the fighters who combine all of them are truly effective.

Similarly, my experience and observations in and of the exercise world have taught me these things:

People who only “do cardio”, generally speaking, are weak as shit.

People who only work on flexibility are slow as sloths AND weak as shit.

People who only strength train can’t even look at a kettlebell without getting winded.

People who only do macho bullshit interval conditioning are orthopedists dreams they’re so injury prone.

Don’t even get me started on workouts with actual names like we discussed earlier: “Zumba”, “P90X”, and that insult to brain cells, the “Bar Method”…uugghhh…If it has a name, generally speaking, it’s replaced common sense with marketing, and is absolutely useless.

You see where I’m going with this.  If you truly want lead a life of looking and feeling great, you need to be proficient at everything.  And I can hear your voice already:

“But I don’t have time!”

Most people don’t.  That’s why most people who exercise fall into one or more of the categories above that I mentioned, despite their well meaning intentions.

The issue is can you combine it all?  We do.  We get all of it done in a few hours per week.  Anyone who tells you it takes longer doesn’t know how to do it very well.  Frankly, I’ve always maintained that if you exercise more than 5-6 hours per week and you DON’T look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Biel, you really need to re-evaluate how effective your training is, because it probably sucks.

Every single session we address mobility, core training, strength training and conditioning.  We emphasize certain aspects as we de-emphasize others on a rotating basis (undulating periodization) to provide active recovery for those that aren’t being emphasized and to reduce the monotony found in the other “named” workouts.

This is why TR members get results – they get everything done in a few hours per week.

Does that make me the Bruce Lee of training?  No, of course not, it just makes me someone who’s seen thousands of people try and thousands of people fail.  And quite often, it’s because they trap themselves into a style: “I have to do yoga,”  “I have to do cardio”, “I have to bench press”, etc.  And end up becoming proficient at those particular disciplines without recognizing that’s only a small percentage of their overall health and fitness levels.  And unfortunately, this ignorance leads to the exact opposite of the desired goal: frustration, weight gain, joint pain, etc.

That being said, I still try to crack my knuckles just by making a fist the way Bruce Lee did…

Train Raw!

Remember the scene from “Major League” when Charlie Sheen’s character put on his horn rimmed glasses for the 1^st time?  Well if you don’t, you missed a great scene from a great movie.  After realizing that his character had eyesight problems that were keeping him from being a successful big league pitcher, his manager rushed out and got him a ridiculously hideous set of horn rimmed glasses.  One teammate responded “Don’t worry about it kid, seeing is the most important thing.”  Another teammate, looking at the glasses says, “It ain’t that important…”

That was how I felt the 1^st time I saw minimalist training sneakers.  I didn’t care if or how they worked – they just looked too stupid to wear.

Lately, the proliferation of barefoot training or training wearing “minimalist” sneakers has become increasingly popular.  We’re here today so I can give you the basic rationale behind minimalist footwear, and to tell you I was 100% wrong about it.  I made a mistake that I criticize other people for making all the time: judging something, or someone, simply based on how it looks.

Yes, you heard me, I was 100% wrong.  Stop smirking, I actually admit being wrong quite often, smarty pants.

First, the rationale behind minimalist footwear:

A quick lesson on bio-mechanics: remember that song in kindergarten? Your shin bone is connected to your thigh bone, etc etc?  Well it’s 100% accurate.  And since our feet are what’s in contact with the ground when we’re moving the positioning of our foot is crucial.  If our foot is not in an optimal position, our ankle will not be in the correct position.  If our ankle is not in the correct position, our knee won’t be in the correct position, and so on and so on.  Therefore, the correct bio-mechanical positioning of the foot is crucial to the rest of our body being in the correct position.  If joints such as the knees, hips, spine and shoulders are out of position, this is deleterious to both our joint health and our performance in the gym.

The problem with traditional sneakers is that they automatically put your foot in the wrong anatomical position. Your heel is instantly placed higher than your toes and your toes are squished together.  To optimize function, your heel needs to be on the ground (not on a 1” high wedge) and your toes need to be separated and spread out, as opposed to being in the perpetual vice grip of your cross trainers.

Problem #2: Every single thing about the way you move is reliant on sensory information from your feet.  Doesn’t make sense to you?  OK, here’s the short version then: we’re going to revisit 6^th grade science class.

When you are walking, or doing anything for that matter, when your foot hits the ground nerves in your foot send messages to your brain.  Your brain then interprets these messages and quickly sends messages to every muscle in your body, telling them how to respond so you can stay upright and keep moving.  For example, during normal walking, your brain would get one set of messages, if you slipped on a banana peel, it would get a different set, if you saw a car coming right at you, a different set, and so on and so on.  The rest of your body would move differently in each one of these situations depending on what messages the nerves in your feet gave to your brain, and then the subsequent messages your brain gave to every other muscle in your body.

It is impossible for your brain to receive accurate information about your movement and therefore impossible for it to respond optimally if your feet are on pillows with your toes squished together.

Your movement, and therefore your exercise program, is solely reliant on good information reaching your central nervous system.  If it receives shitty information, it doesn’t really matter what kinds of muscles are running the show and making you move.  This is why there are people who look fantastic, but may be the most uncoordinated injury prone people on the planet.  Conversely, there are people who don’t “look” athletic, but actually are pretty coordinated and catch on to workouts quickly.  It’s simply because their brains work better when it comes to movement.

It’s like 2 people driving the same model car: both cars have the same engine, the same brakes, handling, etc.  But one is driven by Jeff Gordon and the other by a little old lady.  Which one is going to get better more accurate information about starting, stopping, turning, accelerating, etc.?

And more importantly, from practical, personal experience and observations, I can see a difference since switching to minimalist footwear.  I’ve done it and a good chunk of the TR membership has as well with great results.  Not one of us who has switched to minimalist or barefoot training has returned to wearing regular sneakers when exercising.

Since trying out the Adidas Adipure, I can tell you I will never exercise in regular sneakers ever again.  Frankly, I wouldn’t limit it to exercise: if it weren’t winter in the northeast I’d be wearing them 24/7.

And before I go on, I must be clear I receive no compensation to endorse Adidas or the Adipure.  (Although for the record, I must admit I like the fact that Adidas DOES NOT give $100 million to quarterbacks who torture dogs, like some other brand name sneaker company.  Sorry, had to get that in…)

Does working out barefoot work? Sure.  You may have a problem with traction and stepping on things can be uncomfortable, but it’ll work.  The Adipure have a thin rubber sole so if you do step on something like a pebble or tack you won’t be injured.

And for those of you who still say “Well, don’t your feet need some support?” My response is this:  Following your logic, you should be wearing knee braces, back braces, shoulder braces and neck braces too when you work out because those areas need support as well.  

But I know you won’t do that because THAT would be stupid. J

Jon

Have Muscle, Burn Fat!

You’ve heard me say countless times by now that long duration cardio is one of the LEAST effective ways to lose body fat.

One thing that perhaps I haven’t emphasized enough however, is this: one of the BEST ways to lose body fat is to increase or maintain muscle tissue.

Let’s be clear about this: I did NOT say go get big muscles.  I said increase or maintain your muscle tissue and strength.  Subtle, yet very important difference.

Far too often, people associate strength and muscle increases with big, inflated biceps, deltoids, pecs, etc.  (like this guy…who doesn’t do drugs…really…)

Because most women have a phobia about increasing size and getting “bulky”, and because most men figure out in their early 20’s that big muscles are useless as a general rule, they de-prioritize or avoid strength training.

This is where some confusion comes in because this may seem like a conundrum to many: increase lean muscle tissue without getting “big muscles”?   Let me address some common questions/areas of confusion as to how increasing muscle tissue sheds fat and how increasing muscle doesn’t mean “big muscles”:

·        

          Strength training is NOT what people think it is

People get confused as to what strength training is.  Let me clear up what it is NOT:  Strength training is NOT sitting on benches.  It is NOT sitting on machines.  Strength training is NOT training one muscle at a time.

Those training methodologies were born from people trying to sell you gym memberships and from people trying to convince themselves, and you, that they actually work hard.  (Yeah, that last set of reverse grip tricep pushdowns looked pretty grueling.  Definitely justified the noise you made and the “tough guy” look you shot into the mirror…)

Real strength training, that is to say strength training that actually improves strength and quality of muscle tissue, involves total body movements, not the one muscle at a time approach.  Real strength training involves you supporting your own body weight, not a machine or bench supporting all the weight while you use leverage to move it.

Real strength training that involves your entire body without the aid of benches and machines and is done with limited rest periods burns a boat load of calories and kicks your metabolism in the ass.

·         The intensity of a total body strength workout in and of itself will raise your metabolism:

A workout that increases muscle tissue requires enough intensity within the workout that your resting metabolic rate will be raised as a result.  This is a good thing: this means you will be burning more calories the other 23 hours of the day after a strength workout than from something lower in intensity like traditional cardio training.  This is the biggest problem with cardio training – it simply isn’t as intense as strength training and therefore can’t impact your metabolism positively.

·        

Maintaining the muscle requires an increase in RMR

Your body has to work pretty hard just to maintain muscle.  The processing of calories becomes more efficient as you body goes into overdrive to be sure that any calories you do ingest go directly to muscle repair or energy replacement.  And if calories and energy are being used to be sure that muscles are maintained and energy is being replaced, then guess where calories AREN’T going…

·         There are 700 muscles in the body.

The reality is this:  If you utilize total body strength training – NOT isolated muscle strength training – you will have a small increase in muscle size, if there is any increase at all.  This is due to the fact that the weight you’re lifting, which should be pretty substantial if you’re using your whole body, is spread out evenly over every muscle in your body.  Because you’re never isolating and/or overloading one muscle, there will never be any substantial increase in any one muscle.  If you know me, Dina, or any of the regulars at the TR, you know two things: 1. we’ve been doing total body strength training with the heaviest things we can find for a long time, and 2. “Bulky” is the LAST thing that people would call us.

Here’s the issue that most people overlook:  There are about 700 muscles in the human body.  If each one increases in size .001% from total body strength training, that’s negligible from a visual standpoint.  (As opposed to if you only trained your arms with curls and extensions, your arms would get noticeably bigger.  And you’d look like an ass because nothing else on your body would.)  However, that minor increase adds up as far as your metabolism is concerned.  .001% times 700 is enough of an increase to put your metabolism to work as mentioned above.

Bottom line: if you do intense total body strength training, you will increase and/or maintain your strength and muscle tissue.  You will positively impact your RMR.  You will lose body fat.  You will feel better and look better.

Think about the people at Globo gym right now: most do what they think is strength training followed by low intensity cardio.  In other words, two things that a) are time consuming and b) do not burn a significant number of calories, and c) have little impact on the metabolism, so there’s very little calorie burning, if any, when the workout is over.

And even though you may not get big muscles in the traditional sense doing total body strength training, you will be able to see your muscles because the body fat will be reduced.  And who among us doesn’t want that?

Be strong, have some muscle, have very little fat.  Sounds like a plan.

Time To Make A Choice:

Want to lose weight?

That’s simple: change your eating habits.  You need to eat fewer calories than you burn.  If you do this, you will lose weight.  Generally, this is where people try to make things far more complicated than they need to be because no one likes to accept the fact that it could be that simple, but it is.  You don’t even need to exercise.  Frankly, exercise may harm your chances of losing weight because if you do it right, you’ll raise your metabolic rate.  If you raise your metabolic rate, you will most likely consume more to compensate for the caloric expenditure, with the final result being your weight staying more or less the same.

Think I’m crazy or being purposefully dismissive?  Well guess what: I just gave the same advice to my mother when she told me she wanted to lose weight.  She had exercise questions and I said if weight loss is the goal, don’t even worry about exercising, just reduce the number of overall calories.  I’m giving the same advice to you that I give to my own family members.

However, ask yourself if you really want to lose weight.  I’ve found that’s not what most people really want.  Most people want to look better, feel better, and be healthy.  THOSE GOALS ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE FROM LOSING WEIGHT.  

This is something on which I cannot be more clear: your weight has nothing to do with how you look, how you feel, or how healthy you are.  It measures your gravitational pull to the earth – nothing else.  Frankly, I believe doctors who use body weight as a barometer of health should have their medical licenses taken away for perpetuating myths and reinforcing absolute bullshit.

But if losing weight is really what you want, just eat less – you’ll lose weight.

Want to feel better, look better and be healthier?

This is where exercise comes into play.  If done correctly (i.e., stay away from the Globo Gym atmosphere and the mental midgets who reside there) exercise will raise your metabolism which will burn more calories for you 24/7/365 – even when you aren’t working out.  If done correctly exercise will improve your joint health.  If done correctly, exercise will reduce your body fat % making you a much sexier version of yourself.  If done correctly exercise can improve your heart health, lung health, sleeping patterns, emotional health, reduce the chance of injuries and countless other benefits.  If done correctly, exercise will make you look better, feel better and be healthier.

So here’s the choice: Once again, I ask do you want to a) lose weight, or b) look better, feel better and be healthier?

If you chose option a, that’s fine, just eat less and you’ll get what you wished for.  And frankly, you may need the help of a mental health professional, not an exercise professional.

If you chose option b, then let’s talk exercise.

Do it right, get it done.  Be healthier, feel better and be a dead sexy mother effer.

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.