Get It Done....

As I type this blog, I am literally in the middle of grilling a huge package of chicken breast that I marinated a couple of hours ago. I just got done training and have to leave shortly to catch the train into Boston to go to work. Hold on one sec........................................................

Okay, I'm back. Had to go flip my chicken outside. Smells delicious.

Brie Boyer (ranked 12th overall in the world, and 3rd in the US in the Skeleton) is currently staying at mine and Eric Cressey's apartment this week getting some off-season training done at Excel Sport and Fitness in her attempt to switch over to bobsledding for the next Winter Olympics. I came home last night and walked into our kitchen to see an entire fridge full of fresh vegetables (spinach, tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc), fresh fruit (plums, peaches, apples), a few packages of lean ground turkey/beef, cottage cheese, various mixed nuts, and plethora of other quality food items. Additionally, Brie was nice enough to buy a new fan for our living room. YES!

The point of all of this is that we don't make excuses. We both know how and what we're supposed to eat and we get it done. No questions asked. In talking with Brie last night, she mentioned that one of the first things she did when she came here was to find the local grocery store so that she could get the food she needed to cook and pack each day.

We all make sacrifices. I don't necessarily enjoy spending time every day packing my meals and cooking food ahead of time, but I just accept it as something that needs to be done. Point. Blank. Period.

If you want to take your body to the next level, you MUST learn to accept the fact that you have to prepare for success. Fill your fridge with the proper foods, cook your meat ahead of time so that you save time in the long run, bring meals/snacks with you to work. Suck it up and just do it. If an Olympic athlete who trains everyday, works a part-time job, AND travels can do it......so can you.

Have a Clue...

A word of advice to any personal trainers who happen to read this blog: KNOW YOUR CLIENTS and what they're capable of.

I was watching another trainer last night put her client (also female) through a plyometric workout. Plyometrics for ANY "newbie" is questionable, but this was just brutal. I literally cringed when I saw this trainer have her client perform alternating lunge jumps. Each time the poor girl jumped up in the air and landed, her hip would internally rotate and her knee would cave in x 50 times. I was half expecting to see an ACL injury right then and there. It did not look pretty. Donald Trump dressed in drag would have looked prettier.

I will never understand why some trainers will use advanced training protocols with de-conditioned clients. It just doesn't make sense. We as fitness professionals NEED to know our clients and what they're capable of doing. Someone who is fat doesn't need some advanced fat loss program which includes HIIT and complexes and what not; they just need to freakin move. Advanced programs won't help them shed fat any quicker. Someone who can't even land correctly, doesn't need to be doing advanced plyometric training; they need to strengthen their posterior chain (rack pulls, pull-thru's, lunges, squats, etc), and just get stronger in general. Basics people, basics,

Perform Better in Providence

1. Gray Cook has really impressed me. He has an uncanny ability to take really complex concepts and dumb them down to the point where you’re like “huh…that makes total sense.” He’s also hilarious in a Jeff Foxworthy, “I’m a redneck, but I’m still waaaaaaaaay smarter than you” kind of way.

I first heard him speak last March in Boston, and I was able to catch his lecture on “core” training this past weekend. What was great about the lecture was that it wasn’t really a core training lecture, but rather a lecture on how the deadlift is an invaluable exercise. The “core” runs from the thighs to the scapulae (it’s NOT just the abs), which is an important distinction. A strong core is one that can transfer force through the hips to the shoulders. This is where the deadlift comes in. Cook went through numerous progressions from teaching people a proper hip hinge all the way up to loading them. And one very, very, very important point that he made….people NEED to lift heavy. Thank you!

2. We have one mouth and two eyes and ears for a reason. I was fortunate enough to attend the speaker BBQ Saturday night in Providence with Eric Cressey. Talk about a humbling experience. We arrived and walk into the back pool area and the likes of Mike Boyle, Alwyn Cosgrove, Robb Rogers, Mark Verstegen, Gray Cook, and a plethora of other top names in the industry are walking around. To be able to walk around and sit and listen to these people talk is nothing short of awesome. Keep your mouth shut and listen. Trust me, you’re not that special…..;o)

3. After listening to Mike Boyle speak on Sunday, I am convinced that the majority of people do not need to be running. “You get fit to run, you don’t run to get fit.” Women imparticular probably would be better off not running: wide hips, narrow knees (Q-angle) just spells disaster for most (not all). Personal trainers: if you have limited time with clients, interval training will not only be superior from a fat loss standpoint, but will undoubtedly improve AEROBIC conditioning as well.

4. Jimmy Smith is convinced that all of the world’s problems are due to adrenal fatigue. Fat loss plateaus: adrenal fatigue. Rosie O’Donnell constantly acting like a bitch: adrenal fatigue. El Nino: adrenal fatigue.

5. Slide Boards: probably one of the best pieces of equipment you can use for interval training. They don’t take up a lot of space, they’re great for team training environments, and you’re able to train the adductors/abductors simultaneously. Honorable Mention: AirDyne Bikes.

Fat Loss Pros

I will be the first to admit that I don't know everything (except that Jennifer Garner's first tv appearence was in a made-for-tv movie called Zoya, based off a Danielle Steele novel). While I DO know a thing or two about fat loss, I know that there are some darn knowledgeable people out there who just flat out know their stuff. Basically they make me feel stupid sometimes.

I don't like to endorse every fat loss product that comes out, but my good friend Jen Heath has put together one of the most comprehensive fat loss products I have ever seen; Fat Loss Pros. There are the elite of the elite talking about fat loss. To say that I would pay LOTS of money to hear the likes of Alwyn Cosgrove, Dr. Eric Serrano, Dr. Mauro DiPasquale, Erik Ledin, and Cassandra Forsythe talk about fat loss is an understatement. Matter of fact I HAVE paid a lot of money to hear them speak on several occasions.

All in all, there are 18 interviews from some of the top names in the industry all in one comprehensive package for mere peanuts of what you would normally pay to hear them speak seperately.

Fat Loss Pros is easily one of the most comprehensive fat loss products. Below is a brief synopisis of what each interview entails:

Dr. Eric Serrano

• How food allergies and intolerances negatively impact body composition and what you can do about them
• Why you should NOT avoid eating dietary fat and what certain types of fats actually make you leaner!

Dr Lonnie Lowery

• How to set up your diet and training program so that you can shuttle more of the nutrients you ingest into lean muscle and away from body-fat stores. .
• How to alter the state of your nutrition based on the amount of soreness induced by your training

John Parrillo

• The importance of “building” your metabolism and eating your way to a leaner body
• How some of his female clients are able to get ripped eating as many as 6000 + calories per day
• How to cycle your training and diet to build muscle and burn off body-fat at the same tim e

Roger Riedinger

• How to structure your workouts to ensure you build strength while getting as lean as possible . .
• The importance of getting protein from various sources to ensure the highest protein efficiency
• How to cycle your diet to lose as much fat as possible while keeping your metabolism elevated

Alwyn Cosgrove

• Why doing cardio first thing in the morning is unnecessary and counterproductive.
• How he is able to get his clients lean in record time using only 3 forty-five minute sessions per week without any cardio whatsoever

Scot Abel

• How to dramatically increase the effectiveness of your cardiovascular work with Metabolic enhancement training

• How to avoid suppressing your metabolism through excessive dieting and exercise

Cassandra Forsythe

• Why lower carbohydrate diets actually enhance the building of muscle and strength over time in comparison to higher carb fares
• How to best set up a diet and training scheme to build muscle and lose fat, based on scientific research
• and much more….

Dr. Mauro DiPasquale

• How to optimize hormone levels through your diet
• Why the practice of taking in massive amounts of carbohydrates post-workout is over-rated and unnecessary - How to ensure your glycogen levels are always full
• How you can train your body to become “fat-adapted” so that you can burn more fat 24 hours per day all while staying energized without blood sugar crashes and hunger

Eric Ledin

• How training a high volume of numerous types of women, has given him an edge with this niche

• How to properly periodize low intensity and high-intensity cardio to ensure maximum fat loss without interfering with your strength progression

• Kelli Calabrese

• Learn things you didn’t know about pregnancy! - Why common prescriptions for weight gain during pregnancy are false and what to do about it

• Learn the real reason women have increased appetite prior to her menstrual cycle and what to do about
• Finally, the ins and outs of female training and nutrition though all stages of lif

Don Alessi

• How to determine your hormonal status by analyzing your fat storage patterns
• The “idea” fat storage pattern and how to achieve it through altering your training, nutrition, and supplementation patterns
• How to supplement based on your hormonal statues

Charles Staley

• How to ensure you’re performing quality workouts instead of just going through the motions
• The importance of progressive resistance and progressive workload

Chad Ikei

• What he does that enables many of his athletes to shed massive amounts of body-fat while simultaneously building muscle.

• How identifies any deficiencies in hormonal status

• Discover the periodization schemes Chad uses with his top level professional athletes

Ryan Lee

• The most common myths about exercise

• The importance of level of effort when it comes to burning fat

• How to get in intense fat burning workouts in as little as 4 minutes per day

Krista Scott Dixon

• How to increase the effectiveness of our workouts by choosing exercises that conform to our natural primal movement patterns

• The biggest mistakes people make in their training

• The importance of our own psychology for ensuring permanent results in physique transformation

• How whole foods can be KEY in fat loss results

• Learn the “3 P’s” of female weight training and how they can get you where you want to be

Craig Ballantyne

• The secrets behind his revolutionary Turbulence Training
• How to set up full body fat burning workouts without weights

Paul Chek

• Why it’s essential to eat whole natural proteins if you’re interested in your health
• How to set up a diet based on your unique hereditary metabolic characteristics
• The importance of rotating foods to avoid developing food intolerances and allergies

Chad Waterbury

• Understanding the nervous system and how to best stimulate it
• How to use low rep training for simultaneous fat loss and strength gain
• How to burn up to 300 more calories per day simply by consuming more fat

That seriously only scratches the surface of what these professional offer in this package. Not only that, but there is an AMAZING FREE bonus package included containing training programs, e-books and a special interview on “body fat set point” - which teaches about the body’s “fat storage system” and how we can manipulate it. Again, the benefits of Fat Loss Pros are endless.

Nice Legs?

I got a random e-mail from a female client of mine not too long ago and here's what it said:

"give me an example and/or a picture of a chick with really nice legs. My mind is drawing a blank."

Apparently my client and a friend of hers got into a little bit of friendly disagreement. Consider the fact that my client is a die hard Red Sox fan from South Boston, you DO NOT want to get into a disagreement with her.

Anyways, because my client is uber cool, she commented on how gross Amy Winehouse is. I have no idea who Amy Winehouse is (other than some chick from the UK who likes to smoke and sing country music), but this is the picture that my client's friend sent her saying: "I would kill to have legs that look like this."




What? You want legs that look like wet noodles? I've seen crack whores with nicer legs than this.

So being the nice guy that I am, I dug into my "nice legs" library and sent my client this picture:



This woman actually looks like she eats something and lifts weights (and she obviously has superb fashion sense...love the shoes).

Come on ladies. You have to agree, right?

Does It Ever Just "Click?"

I got an e-mail the other day from another personal trainer asking me if there was ever a point in my career where everything just "clicked" and came together. To quote him:

"For example, my first year = shitty training programs/no confidence, second yr = more understanding of program design, still a little unsure, this year = I feel it's beginning to come together, more confidence in program design, a certain quiet confidence (still humble, though). I think all the best in the business have a constant hunger for knowledge and a quiet confidence about them, they just get "IT", hopefully I'm on the right path for "IT".

I look back when I started in this industry (2002) and I cringe. The funny thing is, I THOUGHT I knew everything there was to know about strength and conditioning back then. Come to find out, I didn't know squat. Literally and figuratively. I was still very much a newbie. My programming sucked my first year in the industry; I am scared to admit that I was the “lets set you up on a machine circuit” guy. I didn’t even know what a deadlift was for crying out loud. Boooooooooo Tony.

To be honest, there are STILL times where I think I am the dumbest person on earth. I can look back as far as six months ago and shake my head in disbelief at some of the stuff I advocated or tried out with my clients. But you learn as you go. Trial and error, right? I mean if Mike Boyle can admit that he is wrong from time to time after 20+ years in the industry, I think anyone who claims they know it all is a pompous asshole.

I think the key to success in this industry is a constant thirst for knowledge. I have said this several times and it bears (or is it bares?) repeating…continuing education is crucial. Read and attend seminars; surround yourself with like minded individuals. If you do this, you WILL succeed.

It’s hard to believe that when I first started, I didn’t even know that places like t-nation.com or various other sites existed. I didn’t know who John Berardi, Alwyn Cosgrove or Mike Boyle were. And I think Eric Cressey was still trying to grow facial hair back then…;o)

Fast forward 5 years.

1. I am now writing for t-nation.com on a regular basis, as well as other various sites.
2. I have been fortunate enough to be asked to contribute to several e-books and manuals.
3. I work at one of the top clubs in the country.
4. And in a “I have kinda made it” moment: John Berardi, Alwyn Cosgrove and Mike Boyle all know who I am. I know this because Alwyn and Mike like to bust my chops about my little infatuation with Jennifer Garner.

The point is, I had a constant thirst for knowledge. I ALWAYS want to better myself as a trainer. I never want to be medicore. In essence, it will take time…but I do feel that everyone will get to the point where things just start to click. BUT, you have to learn from your mistakes as you go.

Quiet confidence….I like that.

Some MoreTomfoolery

This is probably going to be my most random blog entry ever.

1. The Fitcast: we have added a new co-host in Jen Heath

To say that we're excited about having a female voice on the show is an understatement. We have also revamped the format and content of the show and the website. From now on there will be DAILY content on the website in the form of mini-articles/blurbs from all five of us. I will also be keeping a tally of how many guys attempt to get Jen's phone number. FYI fellas, you have a better shot of getting abducted by aliens AND getting struck by lightening than you are in scoring Jen's phone number.

Check out The Fitcast

2. Eric Cressey and I went to a good friend's wedding a few weeks ago and here are some random shots of how we rocked out. Thanks go to Anna and Katlyn for making sure our ties were on correctly.











3. I have the best girlfriend ever, Katlyn. I never thought I would find someone so perfect for me than she is. Not only is she drop dead gorgeous, but she is truely my best friend.

4. Watch "Alpha Dog"......great movie. Sure Justin Timberlake is in it and he plays a ghetto superstar, but he does have some acting chops.

How to warm-up

Q. What's the best way to utilize warm up sets in a program? How many do you do and do you need to do them at the start of each exercise or just for the bigger movements or just for the initial exercises/movement patterns? Also, how do you account for time when working them in? I've read alot of stuff on program design and almost all of it seems to totally ignore the time required for warm up sets and just focus on filling up the hour with working sets. So drawing from your experience, what is the best way to implement warm up sets in a program and especially in a program with tight time restrictions?

A. Lets break this one down piece by piece:

But first lets talk about a general warm-up. Watch most people "warm-up" and you will see them hop on the stationary bike or treadmill for five minutes and then do a few static stretches and they're off on their way. WRONG! This is a very archaic and inefficient way to warm-up.

Hopefully by now, people have caught on to the fact that following a DYNAMIC WARM-UP is far superior and prepares the body for movement to a much greater degree. If you aren't doing dynamic flexibility drills prior to training, you're really doing yourself a disservice.

On to the actual question:

How do you utilize warm-up sets in a program? How many do you do and do you need them at the start of each exercise or just for the bigger movements or just for the initial movement patterns?

***My rule of thumb is to basically use a few (2-4) warm-up sets for the initial exercise of the day. So if a client of mine was squatting, I would have him/her "warm-up" for a few sets to groove the pattern and to prepare the nervous system for the loading that is about to come. The key to warm-up sets is to NOT make them working sets. A lot of people make the mistake of doing 3 sets of 10 for their warm-up sets, and then when they finally get to their working sets, they are already fatigued. Lets use an example. This particular client worked with 185 lbs for 4x6 the last time we did squats.

Bar x whatever (groove the pattern)
95x5
115x3
135x3

The goal is to make each warm-up set progressively heavier to prepare the client for the loads that he/she will be using during their working sets. And there is very little rest in between warm-up sets. Essentially, it should be do the set, rest for the amount of time it takes to switch plates, do the next set, etc. From there, they should be good to go and move on to their working sets. Why it takes some people 20 minutes to warm-up is beyond me.

Since I tend to use mostly full-body routines with the majority of my clients, I may need to throw in a few warm-up sets with some exercises later on, but like I mentioned above it's moreso to "groove the pattern" and prepare the body for heavier loads. And usually by this time, it's just a matter of maybe ONE warm-up set using a light load and then get right to it.

So drawing from your experience, what is the best way to implement warm up sets in a program and especially in a program with tight time restrictions?

Use them mainly for the BIG movements (squat/deadlift/bench variations) and be efficient. Don't pussy-foot around. We're only talking 2-4 sets max here, and they're quick. Even for time restricted clients, warm-up sets ARE necessary. [NOTE: if we're talking about max effort work here, then how we approach warm-up sets is entirely different, but I think most know that already.]

Listen to Your Body

So I was all prepared to put myself through a deadlift session yesterday. I did my foam rolling, dynamic flexibility, and had my iPod set on shuffle (I must say I have a kick ass trance/house playlist). Time to get down to bidness.

I got to my 3rd warm-set (315) and noticed my back just wasn't feeling it. So rather than being a tough guy and continuing on, I just decided to skip the rest and move on to all the other things I had planned. Some light front squats, glute ham raises, reverse lunges, and some pull-throughs.

Moral of the story? I STILL had a great training session and I was able to work around my back not feeling up to par. By next week, I will be feeling great.

Learn to listen to your body. It will save you a lot of frustration in the long run