For many people, stepping on a scale is the most highly anticipated and nerve-wracking part of their weight loss plan.
All the hours of work in the gym to burn that extra fat and gain muscle can be validated, or completely wiped out in this one moment, depending on what the scale says.
Except that’s not true.
If you were to ask the average person what the best exercise for fat loss is, they’d probably say “Jogging”. We have it embedded in our minds that cardio equals pure calorie burn.
Unfortunately, everyone is wrong. Cardio is in no way the most effective exercise for getting the body you want, and in many cases it is actually detrimental to your physique.
Alcohol is the crown jewel of human achievement. People have been getting smashed since at least 10,000 BC, making boozing one of the only universally enjoyed pastimes.
Unfortunately, heavy drinking is also fitness suicide. Alcohol robs your body of the hormones and water it needs to grow muscle, and keeps your body from burning fat.
“Compound exercises – work muscles in groups. They are the most efficient way to work your muscles vs. isolation/circuit training. Why spend hours in the gym hitting every body part? Compound exercises are for more effective than isolation.” – John McCallum
I get asked all the time what my “upper body routine” looks like and what specific exercises should be targeted to get the physique of a Men’s Health model.
If it is not apparent by now, I am a huge advocate of compound exercise and argue that they are all one needs to build the ideal male physique. · Continue
“…easy and strong are usually opposing concepts.” – Mark Rippetoe
By now you’ve probably seen the viral video of the grandma dead-lifting 200+ lbs that has taken the Internet by a storm. If you haven’t seen it yet you can watch it here:· Continue
“… if I were thrown in jail and I was allowed to weight train only half an hour three times a week, I would just do squats. That’s it.” – D. Charles
By now you should be well familiar with the history of the marketing monster that the fitness industry has become. Too many people these days focus on “core” strength and sell you equipment or teach dumb exercises on how to “target” the core. The fact of the matter is, the squat is the single best “core” strengthening exercise out there as it balances the muscles of the hips and knees. Please don’t believe the lies.· Continue
“Our strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies.” – Mark Rippetoe
Compound lifts are the building blocks of fitness and should be the foundation of every strength and conditioning program out there. The three main compound lifts are the Squat, Deadlift, and Overhead Press. If you don’t know how to do these properly it is about time you learn because these lifts will be with you for the rest of your life.· Continue
I was at lunch yesterday with my colleagues and overheard a discussion about HIIT vs. steady state cardio. The conversation went something like this:
Colleague 1: “I was working on some HIIT yesterday…check out this new App that syncs your intervals to music. It’s called a Tabata. Cool right?”
Colleague #2: “Oh yeah check out this trending hot Singaporean guy. He has like 100k followers. I watch his channel to exercise. He does HIIT too.”· Continue
I just returned from a monster weekend getaway in Tokyo with my wife. It was our first trip away from the kids so I decided to eat with reckless abandon. It all started on Thursday afternoon at the Hong Kong airport where I was eating and drinking my face off and it did not end until Sunday night on the flight back home (still drinking cheap airplane wine and eating crappy airplane food)
I did not get in a single workout (I don’t count the walking we did while shopping) nor did I count any calories or track any macros the entire time. The only thing I did was continue my IF protocol of skipping breakfast which is second nature to me at this point. It was a weekend of pure indulgence and utter freedom.· Continue
This is a great question and the secret sauce to this whole puzzle. Macros are now the new “buzz word” in the fitness industry and I’m happy to see this trend of people actually giving a shit about more than just counting calories.
The important thing is to track them the right way. Now that you know exactly how many calories you are allowed to eat per week, it is time to drill down to the most granular level of macro-nutrients.· Continue
