“How long is your diet?”

These five words are the biggest impediment to maintaining your desired level of fitness.

At Hack Your Fitness, we live by one unshakable rule of diet and nutrition:

You are making a lifestyle change, not a temporary adjustment.

Despite what the latest fad diet would have you believe, proper nutrition doesn’t adhere to a timeframe, nor does it take a vacation during the summer or around the holidays.

Results simply don’t last when you drop a diet and go back to eating like you did before.

In this article, we’re going to dispel the other diet myths you believe, lay the foundation for a healthy eating lifestyle, and deliver you the Hack Your Fitness approved diet plan.· Continue

“The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.” – Denis Waitley

Success with fitness begins with your psychology, not your tactics.

As human beings, we often confuse activity with achievement and thus begin our fitness journeys diving headfirst by selecting a routine, joining a gym, and trying to learn the proper techniques.

Going that route usually ends in burnout or years of spinning your wheels.

If you want to master your fitness, you should start by taking a step back and analyzing the psychology behind your decision to get fit.

Those who take time to pinpoint their “why” have a much easier time with executing the “how.”

In this article, we’ll break down psychological tools you can use to stay motivated, disciplined, and balanced as you pursue your fitness goals.· Continue

Legendary strength coach Mark Rippetoe shares my attitude toward bicep curls:

“Since you’re going to do them anyway, we might as well discuss the right way to do curls.”

At Hack Your Fitness, we don’t advocate isolation work because it’s done mainly for aesthetic purposes and quite frankly, it just takes too long. We prefer compound lifts that are efficient and benefit your entire posterior chain.

Sadly, society sees the biceps and chest as the surest measure of a man’s fitness. Even women want toned arms… just as long as they’re not too jacked.

I see bicep curls as a waste of time (preferring to do chin-ups), but if you insist on doing them, let’s look at the most effective way to perform them so you can maximize your investment.· Continue

Trying to select a perfect workout routine can feel like eating at an endless buffet—you spend more time making a choice than actually eating.

There are countless different programs out there, but in general, most beginners will start with a program like Starting Strength and eventually graduate to a Push, Pull, Legs program. That said, PPL routines can work extremely well for beginners too.

If you value maximum results in the least amount of time (a cornerstone of Hack Your Fitness), PPL routines are an excellent way to begin your fitness journey.

But even within the category of PPL programs, there is a lot of confusion. Why PPLs? What is a compound lift? Which accessory work should I do? Should I workout 6 days a week or 3?

I’m going to answer all of the above and more, starting with the basics.· Continue

Whether it’s cramming for finals in college, the birth of your child, or the bender you pulled for your company Christmas party, we’ve all had nights where we’ve skipped out on sleep.

Missing one night of sleep when life happens is fine, but if you’re regularly missing out on sleep to go on Netflix binges or pursue your side hustle, you’re killing your productivity.

High achievers might treat sleep deprivation like a badge of honor, but new research tells us that being well-rested helps us do everything at a higher level, including fitness.

As a fitness hacker and a caffeine-fueled entrepreneur, I’m conflicted whenever I skip sleep to burn the candle at both ends. In my mind, time is money.

At the same time, I don’t want my workouts to suck because I’m exhausted.

If you’re serious about fitness, you can’t afford to skimp on sleep. But amid our increasingly busy lives, how do we ensure we’re catching enough shut eye?

This post will explain why our brains and bodies need sleep, connect stellar fitness results to proper rest, and introduce steps to getting the best night’s sleep possible.

If your eyes are heavy, go take a nap and come back. If not, let’s get started.

Adequate Sleep Makes Us Feel Alert

We all know sleep recharges our brain for the next day, but have you ever wondered why you feel alert in the morning after a good night’s sleep?

The answer lies with adenosine, a chemical produced in our brains that promotes sleepiness.

Adenosine levels are low in the morning after a night of sleep and rise throughout the day. By day’s end, your adenosine level is high, which makes you feel sleepy.

Scientists have linked a lack of adenosine in the brain to alertness, so as your adenosine level decreases during sleep, your brain is essentially preparing itself to be alert in the morning.

Motivation levels are highest when mental alertness is highest, so in order to be motivated and enjoy peak performance, you need a good night’s sleep.    

Muscles Recover and Regenerate During Sleep

The processes that occur during sleep benefit our bodies just as much as our brains:

• Trillions of cells are replaced during a process known as cell turnover.
• Our muscles cells degrade and proteins are replaced during “protein synthesis.”

During exercise, we’re intentionally damaging our cells and muscle fibers. While we sleep, our bodies are hard at work repairing that damage.

To better handle this breakdown in the future, our bodies add more cells to our muscle fibers during sleep so that our muscles grow back bigger and stronger.

By training, we’re hacking the process of cell turnover to accelerate muscle growth.

Of course, our bodies can’t generate stronger muscle fibers without muscle recovery.

Protein is the key to muscle recovery, which explains why we eat so many chicken breasts in the name of fitness. During sleep, protein is broken down and fed to our muscles.

After protein synthesis, our body can begin the process of rebuilding our muscles.

Sleep Deprivation is Killing Your Fitness

If sleep is beneficial to our bodies, a lack of sleep obviously has negative effects.

Here are just a few of the ways sleep deprivation is sabotaging your fitness efforts:

• Sleep deprivation has been linked to muscle loss and muscle atrophy.
• The testosterone levels of 10 healthy men dropped 14% during one study where sleep was reduced from nine hours to five for a week.
• Insufficient sleep decreases production of growth hormone, which inhibits muscle growth.
• Sleep deprivation is also linked to decreased fat loss and increased risk of chronic disease.
• Our physical performance also suffers when we don’t get enough sleep.

To sum it all up: Sleep deprivation counteracts all the positive effects of regular exercise.

I wouldn’t say exercise is pointless without proper sleep, but you’re sacrificing a big chunk of your results whenever your preferred late-night activities keep you up past bedtime.

Follow These Steps to Get Enough Sleep

By now we understand why sleep is the ultimate fitness hack. So how do we ensure we’re getting enough of it throughout the week?

Let’s start by determining how much sleep is considered “enough.”

Sleep needs vary, but the National Sleep Foundation says adults need seven to nine hours of sleep per night to avoid the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Here are some tips to help you get a full night’s sleep:

• If you exercise during the day, you’ll tire yourself out and sleep will come faster at night.
• Don’t exercise at night. You’ll raise your energy level and adrenaline right before bed.
• Avoid drinking caffeine after dinner. An earlier cutoff is better if you can manage it.
• Don’t bring your cell phone into the bedroom or watch TV while trying to fall asleep.
• Avoid any late-night glasses of wine: Despite being a depressant, alcohol disrupts sleep.
• Find the right sleep environment, whether that’s room temperature or white noise.
• Some people like to take a warm bath before bed. (I’m a shower guy myself.)
• Don’t oversleep. You may reset your body clock, making it harder to fall asleep.

Make Your Sleep a Top Priority

Contrary to the belief I held for years, “catching up on sleep” during weekends doesn’t improve your sleep deficit. The only thing you’re doing is screwing up your body clock.

You can get back on track by putting down the cell phone, going for a water instead of a night cap, and climbing into bed before the clock reads AM.

If you’ve got a newborn or work two jobs, seize the opportunities you have for extra sleep. As a parent, I can attest to the fact that naps work wonders.

Everyone else lacks a valid excuse for not logging enough sleep every night.

Your brain, your body, and your fitness depend on you getting the Zzzzs you need!

Ever since creatine first burst onto the scene during the 1992 Olympics—when Linford Christie took it before winning the 100-meter sprint—this mysterious supplement has raised many questions:

• Is creatine some sort of natural steroid?
• Will taking it make me stronger, or is it simply a placebo effect?
• Are there are any health risks associated with taking creatine?

I was first exposed to creatine in college. My meathead roommate shoveled this white powder into his mouth between meals and another friend told me he got jacked in just two weeks after taking creatine.

Since then, creatine has evolved from a white powder into a tasty shake and my experience with it has helped me answer the questions I had when I first heard about it.

In this post, we’re going to look at what exactly creatine does to your body, explore the benefits and drawbacks of taking it, and ultimately decide if you need creatine to get jacked.

Let’s start with a quick science lesson. Don’t worry, I’ll keep things simple.

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If there’s one thing fitness bros love to do, it’s going into granular detail about shit that doesn’t matter.

Case in point: I’ve read articles about warming up that took me 10 times longer to read than my actual warm up. Warming up is important, but we’ve made it far too complicated.

In this post, I’m going to show you why I warm up just enough to perform my first work set. Despite what Men’s Health might tell you, anything more than that is a waste of time.

Let’s jump into this discussion with the surprising science behind warming up.· Continue

“You don’t understand—I have a slow metabolism.”

I loved using this line for the first 10 years of my fitness journey.

It was the ideal cop out and the perfect motivator. I looked at genetic freaks like my wife and told myself I’d been dealt a bad hand in life, so I had to work harder than everyone to get fit.

Do you know where this excuse got me? Nowhere!

I was the Lance Armstrong of spinning my fitness wheels. By believing the lie that metabolism and my somatotype (or body type) defined my destiny, I doomed myself to years of endless frustration and a lack of results before I finally figured out how to hack fitness.

Don’t buy into the BS like I did. Your metabolism is not that damn important.

In this post, I’m going to examine the myth of metabolism and somatotypes and see why these factors are ultimately powerless to shape our fitness journey.

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There’s a 95% chance the supplements you’re taking right now are worthless.

I know the fancy bottle promises monster results and the salesman at your local Vitamin Shoppe swears by what he sold you, but here’s the harsh truth: You’re being duped.

Valued at $37 billion in 2015, the supplement industry is a money printing machine.

People who are desperate for an edge are throwing money at supplement companies and these greedy bastards are milking those insecurities for all they’re worth.

If the supplement industry was honest and said you could achieve the body you want without their products, they’d be wiping out a massive cash cow.

Since they obviously won’t tell you this, I will: You don’t need supplements to get fit. But if you’re going to take them regardless, these fours are actually worth your consideration.

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With Valentine’s Day around the corner, millions of people are about to receive sugary treats from their special someone. Pounds will be gained. Diets will be submarined.

This holiday is just one of the many days that we love to indulge. Research tells us that the average American consumes 80 pounds of added sugar per year, or 22 teaspoons per day.

That’s the equivalent of drinking three 12 oz. cans of Coke every…single…day.  

Sugar has long been vilified as the root of all nutritional evil and the primary reason one-third of Americans are obese. Googling “is sugar bad for you?” tells you that sugar:

• Contains no nutrients, is bad for your teeth, and causes fatty liver disease
• Can lead to metabolic disease, type-2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease
• Makes you obese, shortens your life, and is detrimental to brain chemistry

I love this Huffington Post headline: “Fatty and Sugary Foods are as Addictive as Cocaine and Nicotine, Warns Health Experts.” In other words, Twinkies are as bad as blow.

Here at Hack Your Fitness, we love dispelling bullshit fitness myths, and today we’re tackling the lie that you can’t get shredded if you eat sugar. This is a half-truth being peddled by the “Eat Clean Club” that also believes all carbs are bad and olive oil is good in any amount.

Enough is enough. Sugar is not the villain here, and in this post, I’m going to prove it.

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