What’s at the top of your list?

In the grand scheme of things how important is being healthy and physically to you?

Is it right at the top of your list, or is it something that’s more or less secondary to things like your family, friends, your career or even having a good time?

A lot of the time we grade what’s most important to us, or place them in a list. Family might be #1, friends #2, health #3 and so forth. But doesn’t it make more sense to connect them to one another? Read the rest of this entry »

fat loss vs weight loss – 5 steps for fat loss in the weight room

Part II

Weight training for fat loss

Before I got things all figured out with my training, I’d have two different workouts, one for fat loss and one for gaining lean mass and neither of them actually worked all that well. What I’d did is what a lot of people are doing, adding reps for fat loss workouts and adding weight and lowering reps for gaining muscle workouts.

When we’re trying to burn fat we think more reps = more calories expended, therefore better results when it comes to fat loss. And when we’re trying to gain muscle, we think lower reps means more weight lifted, which means bigger muscles.

Here are a few things I figured out that resulted in more lean muscle mass gained, and more fat lost.

Read the rest of this entry »

5 specific tips to speed up your workout

This was taken recently in Maui at the beautiful  Wailea Golf course.

1.     Combine your exercises

Your goal, whether it be to gain lean muscle or to burn fat, should be to break down your muscle as much as possible in as little time as possible. I used to be under the impression that super-sets and giant-sets had a negative effect on building muscle, but as usual, back then I was wrong.

Combine two, three, even four exercises into one set. You can do this by focusing on 1 muscle group, which is what I normally do, or up to a different muscle group per exercise. I’ve gained 30+ lbs of lean muscle by combining my exercises into mainly giant sets (3 exercises done back-to-back-to-back) and am both leaner, more muscular and in better shape than ever before.

I’m also spending a maximum of 4 hours in the gym each week, 3 hours more often than not.

2.     Shorten your rest periods

This may seem like a no-brainer, shortening your rest periods to shorten up your workout, but few people actually stay true to their rest periods. I’ll have a rest period of 60 seconds to even as short at 15 seconds in between sets.

If I’m doing a really short rest period, it’s because I’m combining 3 exercises together and instead of doing them back-to-back-to-back as a giant set with 60 seconds rest at the end, I’ll take the 15 seconds of rest after every exercise and keep this short rest period up for the whole workout.

Believe me, try this and you’ll be completely gassed after even a 30 minute workout. Read the rest of this entry »

6 steps to amazing fat loss

6 things I did to drop my bodyweight by 3% in less than 2 weeks, while spending only 3 hours a week in the gym.

If you’ve visited this site before, you’ll know that I’m not big on long, drawn out workouts; I prefer to be in and out of the gym as soon as I possibly can, and on with my day.

I was two weeks away from a trip to Maui and I wanted to shed a few pounds of fat, without sacrificing any of my muscle. Here’s the catch: I had two very busy weeks ahead and I didn’t want to spend more than 3 hours a week in the gym. I had more important things to do, but nonetheless, wanted to get in great shape for the trip. Read the rest of this entry »