Well here we are.
This is where i will post any future articles i find so keep your eyes peeled.
Hopefully this way they wont get lost in the woodwork.
Watch this space.
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Well here we are.
This is where i will post any future articles i find so keep your eyes peeled.
Hopefully this way they wont get lost in the woodwork.
Watch this space.
7 Tips for Long Term Leanness
Getting shredded ain't that tough. Staying that way is!
by Chris Shugart
The fitness magazines are full of them. The bodybuilding rags are full of them. Even T-Nation is full of them: articles about how to lose fat and discover your abs. What's missing? Simple: Info on how to stay that way once you've reached your goal.
Sometimes we resistance-trained gym rats make fun of housewife-types for their yo-yo dieting ways. Yet don't many of us do the same thing, only give it different names like "mass phase" or "cutting phase?" Now, there's nothing wrong with getting your bulk on during certain times of the year, but this desire for size sometimes results in a guy who basically just looks fat 300 days of the year.
Nice traps, but nice love handles too. Nice life-shortening central adiposity you've got going there, buddy.
These days, I prefer to stay under 12% year around. Right now I'm sitting at 9% and feel incredible. This, by the way, isn't a natural state for me. I was chubby during most of my childhood and rode the fat-ass express train in college. With hard training, trial and error nutrition strategies, and some good supplements, I was able to win the battle of the bulge. Win the battle? Yes, but the war is never over.
How come no one talks about the struggles of staying lean? Probably because most people are fat, and there's just a bigger audience (no pun intended) for how-to-lose-it articles than how-to-keep-it-off articles. This article may change that.
Here's how I've learned to stay in the single-digit body fat zone in spite of my fat boy genetics and hungry-man ways. There's not a lot of deep science here, just practical strategies to help you stay ripped for more than a couple of weeks at a time.
Tip #1: Strategically vary meal size.
Here's the scoop: Eat a big breakfast. Eat medium sized, frequent meals during the day. Eat a very small meal at night.
Science has backed up this style of eating, but I want to focus on the common sense stuff. A big breakfast does two things:
1) It breaks the fast of sleep. You need a lot of good food in the morning because you haven't eaten all night. Eat breakfast every day, and eat a big one!
2) Breakfast fuels you for the rest of the day. Basically, you can "burn up" almost anything you eat for breakfast because you'll be awake for the next 15 or 16 hours. Studies have shown that breakfast skippers tend to overcompensate later in the day. In other words, they skip breakfast and pig out on crap at lunch and at night. Not exactly the key to long term leanness.
Okay, so a big, honkin' breakfast is a good idea. So why a small dinner? For almost the same reason: you're about to go to bed; is your body going to use that caloric energy or store it? Store it, of course.
I like eating strategies that have been supported by both science and in-the-trenches lifters, and this meal sizing trick isn't new. Bodybuilder Lee Haney used it back in the day, and nutritional studies support it today.
Tip #2: Strategically time carb and fat intake.
I'm going to keep the language here real simple: Your body handles carbs much better in the morning. It handles carbs poorly at night, but tends to handle fats better.
So go with your body's natural flow: Have a good shot of carbohydrates for breakfast and consume fewer at night. Likewise, keep the dietary fats low in the morning and higher in the evening. Dr. Lonnie Lowery refers to this as Temporal Nutrition, and it works, especially if you're in a phase where you want to stay very lean and avoid excess fat gain.
Based on Tips #1 and #2, here's what a typical breakfast and dinner will look like for me:
Breakfast (big, low fat, high carb, high fiber)
Two servings of Quaker Old Fashioned oatmeal, Fiber One, or Post Shredded Wheat 'n Bran
Two servings of Grow!
One serving of Hood Carb Countdown milk beverage
Two servings of fruit (mixed berries, banana, pineapple, etc.)
Dinner (last meal of the day, small, low carb, higher in good fats)
Tuna filets or chicken breasts
Green salad with olive oil based dressing
This basic strategy keeps me at 9% body fat without sacrificing good, anabolic nutrition. In other words, I don't feel deprived and I'm not giving up muscle gains, although obviously I'm not going to gain muscle as fast as I would in a traditional "bulking" cycle. And that's fine when my primary goal is leanness.
Now, the exception to the above guideline is post-workout. I train around noon so this strategy works out for me. However, if you train at night, don't sweat a high carb post-workout drink. As Dr. Lowery has stated, the post-workout period is the "great corrector." Carbs consumed after training are "put to work," so have them, even if you train at 9PM.
Tip #3: Increase your NEPA.
When I dropped from around 12% to 9% body fat, one of the strategies I used was a daily walk. I know, I know, I've teased these chubby "walkers" in the past myself. "Get a real workout!" I wanted to yell from my pick-up truck window. But if you're already weight training and maybe doing some sprints, an early morning or nightly walk will really take you to the next level of leanness, and keep you there.
Increased NEPA (non-exercise physical activity) is a powerful tool when you want to keep your abs fully visible. You may only be in the gym three to five hours per week; what about the rest of the time? For desk jockeys, actively increasing NEPA could be the difference between single-digit body fat and "muscular guy with fat gut syndrome."
To boost my NEPA, I take stairs whenever possible, I park far away from stores so I'll have to walk more, I refuse to roll my luggage at the airport, and I generally try to take more steps per day. You can do that or you can just take a scheduled walk. I usually pop in an audio book, leash up my Labrador, and take off either early in the morning before breakfast or late in the evening after my last meal. The pace is fast, but it's not exactly "cardio."
I never thought this made much of a difference until a few months ago when I stopped doing it. Although my diet and weight training stayed the same, my body fat climbed slowly back into the double digits. After two weeks of getting back into the walking habit, I was back to single-digit delight; all from the ridiculously simple activity of walking more.
Tip #4: Stop it with the cheat meals (or most of them anyway).
My philosophy used to be this: Eat clean all week; reward myself with piles of garbage on the weekend. Here's what woke me up. One day I'm at a seminar in Canada with Dr. John Berardi. We're shooting the shit and I mention my "pig out on the weekend" philosophy. JB looked me up and down, his eyes pausing on the gut I had at the time, and said, "It's not working though, is it?"
Oh man, I cussed that cocky bastard for days. But he was right.
In the years that followed, I cut back to Saturday-only pig-outs, then a "one cheat meal per week" strategy. I slowly became leaner and leaner. These days, cheat meals come rarely, if at all. After the Velocity Diet I lost my taste for most cheat foods. I simply stopped liking most of them and developed a taste for healthier fare, an unexpected but much appreciated side effect of that strict diet.
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to go to The Cheesecake Factory, a restaurant that used to be my ultimate choice for a cheat meal. I'd planned to pig out too; it had been months since I'd dove into a big 1000 calorie dessert. I got there and, much to my surprise, I just didn't want it. The habit was finally dead. (I had a great Thai steak salad instead.)
For those that still blow the hell out of their diets at least once per week, I only ask that you examine both your goals and your physique. If you're a skinny guy trying to gain weight, well, a whole pizza on Saturday night may not be a bad thing.
But if you're like I was, a "fit" guy with a gut, then maybe it's time for a change. I'd suggest a step-by-step approach. Have only one cheat per week if you're currently having two. If you're having one, go to one every two weeks.
Step it down. Break the cycle. You'll feel better, you'll look better, you'll be healthier in the long run, and women will grab your butt.
Tip #5: Don't eat too late at night.
Long story short: For years I worried about "going catabolic" as I slept at night. I visualized my hard-earned muscle atrophying away as I dreamed about leopard skin thongs.
To prevent this, I had a big meal right before bed. I mean, right before. I'd swallow the last bite as my head hit the pillow. Guess what? I could never stay really lean doing this. Single digit body fat defied me.
In short, I stopped doing it. Now I don't eat in the two hours or so before bed. Now I can easily stay at 9%. Coincidence? I don't think so.
I still worry a little about losing muscle, but as long as my last meal is high protein and slow digesting, and as long as I wake up to a big, equally high-protein breakfast, then I don't lose muscle.
Now, if you're a hard-gaining, skinny-as-a-rail teenager, go ahead and eat before bed. Maybe chug a protein shake in the middle of the night too. But if you've struggled to stay lean and have "fat boy tendencies," don't eat right before bedtime.
Tip #6: Don't eat quite as much on off days.
This is pretty straightforward. You need more fuel to get through a tough workout, and you burn up more fuel (calories) during it. So on your off days, eat a little less to match your lower energy expenditure.
How much less? Play around with it. There are a lot of variables involved but try 100 to 300 calories less and see what happens.
If you use a quality post-workout drink like Surge, then you may already be following this tip since you only ingest that supplement on weight training days anyway.
Tip #7: Use Methoxy-7.
Methoxy-7 is an interesting supplement because it can give you an edge in mass phases and cutting phases. It promotes a positive nitrogen balance (among other things), and that's the jungle all of us iron monkeys would prefer to live in.
However, I reallylike it when trying to stay lean. I feel it allows me to make progress in muscle gains even while staying at an unnaturally low (for me at least) level of body fat. For me, it really is the "hard body solution." Try it and see what you think.
Long Term Leanness
These strategies aren't for everyone. They're for the guy or gal who's lost a lot of fat and wants to keep it off. If you're the type that gets shredded for summer and bulks up in the winter, then these tips should help you easily stay lean all summer long.
These strategies may also help you if you're a guy like me: a former fatty who got lean, loves it, and refuses to get fat again. For you, these tips may be your key to long term leanness!
www.t-nation.com
5 Benefits of taking fish oil tablets
Cool Benefit #1 – Fat Loss
Might as well start with the lookin'-good-nekid stuff! Long story short: fish oils (a prime source of the omega-3s known as DHA and EPA) and some other fatty acids can improve body composition!
Through several mechanisms of action, FFA can help you reduce excess body fat, particularly in the abdominal region. Heck yeah!
FFA are not only good for fat loss phases, they may even help you during a mass phase by reducing fat accumulation via the "deactivation" of some fat-forming enzymes. CLA, another fatty acid, has also been shown to prevent body fat accumulation (if you use enough of the correct isomers, which unfortunately didn't happen with early CLA supplements).
One study done by the Nutritional Physiology Research Group in Australia showed that omega-3 enriched fish oil combined with exercise provides significantly greater fat loss benefits than exercise or fish oil alone. And this study was performed on real live fat people, not chubby rats.
Basically, the omega-3 fatty acids switched on the oxidizing or fat burning enzymes. But here's the catch: they needed a driver – exercise. Combine fish oil supplementation with training and you get more fat loss than training alone. And where did most of this fat loss come from in the studies? The abdominal region! This is about as close as you can get to non-surgical spot reduction.
Next, omega-3s can increase insulin sensitivity, which leads to less fat storage and more fat release. Omega-3s also increase the heat of your cellular "furnaces," making these little organelles burn up more energy. Not only that, omega-3s allow the body to burn fat at times when fat burning is normally inhibited, like after a carby meal.
Okay, excited yet? Personally, my nipples are hard.
Here's another: Inflammation, besides potentially killing your sorry ass, can also screw up how your body handles carbs. Since fatty acids can reduce inflammation, you may be able to achieve a lean state easier through this mechanism. Omega-3s may also decrease hunger and boost your metabolic rate because they increase the amount of leptin produced by your body.
I'd use FFA daily just for the above benefits, but we're just gettin' started!
Cool Benefit #2 – Muscle Gain
In human studies of CLA, participants gained some muscle along with losing some fat. Researchers theorize that some type of "nutrient partitioning" effect occurred. In other words, calories that might originally be stored as fat were being partitioned into muscle with the help of CLA. Pretty cool.
Other possible muscle gain related effects of fatty acids are what might be called "roundabout benefits." For example, if you're getting too much omega-6 and not enough omega-3 (read 99% of the Western world), then this can be very pro-inflammatory. For the weight trainer and athlete, that could mean more instances of tendonitis and bursitis, longer bouts of muscle soreness, and further aggravation to existing injuries, all of which make it a little difficult to train hard, huh?
Fatty acids should help lengthen athletic career longevity, enhance recovery, and even help improve blood flow. At the very least, most people who supplement with functional fatty acids report that their joints start feeling a whole lot better, which is one of the benefits offered my some steroids.
Put all that together and you create an environment supportive of hard training and subsequent muscle gain!
Cool Benefit #3 - Overall health and Longevity
It's funny, but tell someone that the latest Miracle Muscle Magic Fuel 6000 might help him build muscle a little faster and he'll be all over it like a fat kid on pie. Tell him that another supplement has been shown over and over again to have benefits that will lead to a longer, healthier life... and he'll yawn. Yawn like he's watching the Winter Olympics.
I understand. Back in my 20's I was nine feet tall and bulletproof. Now that I'm in my 30's I realize that I'm merely seven feet tall and mildly flame retardant. So I'm starting to pay attention to this health stuff. You should too.
Again, I don't know where to begin. The health benefits of functional fatty acids are abundant, overwhelming even. So let's start with the big stuff: heart disease and cancer. These population thinners, in one form or another, wipe out about 50% of us. Take those odds to Vegas.
One of the biggest causes of the number one killer – diseases of the heart – is inflammation. Yep, that same ol' bugaboo that can screw up your training and recovery. Get a whole bunch of omega-3s in your diet and what can you reduce and control? You guessed it – inflammation.
Omega-3 fatty acids make the blood less likely to form clots that cause heart attacks. They can also protect against irregular heartbeats that cause sudden cardiac death. Omega-3s can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease through these mechanisms too: decreased triglyceride levels, decreased growth of atherosclerotic plaque, improved arterial health, and lower blood pressure.
What about the Grim Reaper's other favorite henchman, cancer? Well, omega-3s might be able to zap existing cancer cells by starving them of linoleic acid. They can also upregulate the genetic material necessary for the destruction of cancer cells andblock adhesion of cancer cells to other healthy cells.
CLA may also be important here. In animal studies, CLA seemed to literally erase certain types of tumors. In human studies, subjects using CLA showed a marked decrease in triglyceride levels and a significant drop in fasting blood sugar levels. CLA may also bind to receptors the same way as some anti-diabetes drugs. It's even been shown to reduce arterial plaques by 30 percent.
I could go on, but I'm sure this "silly" stuff about a trivial topic like life extension is boring you, so let's move on.
Cool Benefit #4 – Mental Health & Brain Health
Attention span waning? Maybe you need to take some fish oil for that! Let's go straight to the bullet points:
• Some recent research has shown that taking a daily fatty acid supplement may boost the effectiveness (or even replace) antidepressants in some people. Depressed people who added omega-3s to their treatment showed less anxiety, fewer sleeping problems, less overall sadness, and fewer sexual problems.
• Even for non-depressed people, FFA may offer mood elevating properties.
• Other research has shown that a daily dose of FFA can dramatically improve the behavior of unruly children and help develop their concentration and language skills.
• FFA have been shown to reduce tension and stress in adults.
• The "mood stabilizing" effects have such potential that omega-3s have been used in the treatment of bipolar disorder.
• After seeing some hopeful results, researchers are now studying how FFA can be used in the treatment of postpartum depression and in the recovery process of meth addicts.
• FFA may help improve memory.
• FFA may also help in the treatment of Alzheimer's, ADHD, and autism.
• Researchers in Scotland have found that people who take FFA score 13% higher on IQ tests. Just think, members of Congress might even hit the triple digits if they took fish oil!
Cool Benefit #5 – Miscellaneous Grab Bag O' Goodness
• Since asthma, like heart disease, is also a disease characterized by inflammation, functional fatty acids could help.
• FFA help improve digestion and elimination.
• FFA may help increase sex drive.
• FFA can help in the treatment of dysmenorrhea (menstrual pain).
• Omega-3s in fish oil protect the eye from two serious eye diseases: age-related macular degeneration and dry-eye syndrome.
• FFA have been shown to prevent heart damage caused by smog.
• FFA may help boost the immune system.
• FFA supplements were found to protect the skin from harmful UV rays and reduce sunburn.
• FFA have been shown to do the dishes without complaining, save you a bunch of money on your car insurance, and swallow.
• Yeah, I made that last one up. Duh.
• The anti-inflammatory effects of FFA may provide some relief for asthmatics who suffer from exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB).
• One study showed that a daily supplement of FFA makes arthritis medicine unnecessary for many patients.
I could go on and on in this category, but I think you get the idea: this is powerful stuff and the potential benefits are enormous.
Power Foods
The Magic 13
by TC
I've had the dubious pleasure of eating lunch or dinner with hundreds — maybe thousands — of bodybuilders, weight lifters, athletes, and fitness bunnies and the undeniable truth is that almost all of them eat like crap.
Despite what they might think, a chicken breast and some steamed rice is not a healthy meal, and that's what they eat most of the time, occasionally substituting a potato for the rice. Sure, it's a lot better than what most Americans cram down their gullet, but it sure doesn't feed the machine.
These assorted athletes and wanna-be athletes are able to function adequately on their fowl dinner, but that's because the body can take a lot of abuse. I remember reading an article about a Japanese man who had survived for 15 months on nothing but popcorn. Think his nutrition was adequate? Well chances are yours ain't much better, bubba.
My diet has rarely been beyond reproach, but doggone it, I'm getting better about it; a lot better. I've consulted the writings of our own resident nutritionists — Berardi, Lowery, and Barr — in addition to books like SuperFoods by Steven Pratt, M.D., and I've come up with my own list of 13 "Power Foods." However, I didn't look at foods as a nutritionist; rather, I looked at them from the perspective of my training as a microbiologist.
Each food was chosen because it appears to have incredible, almost drug-like effects on human physiology. While I make no guarantees (there isn't a nutritionist alive who can), eating these foods often will quite likely change your health and change your life.
These are foods I buy each week, usually on Sunday. I buy specific quantities and my goal is modest: to finish off the amount I bought by the next Sunday. Maybe it's a little sloppy or haphazard, but who the hell has the time to plan and prepare each meal?
My way is simple. And it works.
Here are my choices in no particular order, along with the reasons why I've included them and the amount you should try to eat each week:
Broccoli
In 1992, a study conduced at Johns Hopkins found that broccoli consumption prevented the development of tumors by 60% and it reduced the size of tumors that did develop by 75%.
Clearly, broccoli, like Stacy's mom, has got it going on.
Broccoli contains more polyphenols than any other common vegetable. It also contains large amounts of indoles, which are potent estrogen blockers.
Other super powers possessed by broccoli include an ability to boost the immune system, build bones, fight birth defects, and to ward of degenerative eye diseases.
Ways to eat them: You might want to consider buying broccoli sprouts when they're available as they're 10 to 100 times more powerful than mature broccoli spears.
To eat them, use them in stir-fry dishes or puree them and mix them in soup. Of course, there's always my way, which is to steam them and serve drowned in olive oil and blanketed with red chili flakes.
How much to eat: 1/2 to 1 cup daily
Wild Salmon
Ordinary salmon wear pocket protectors and study to be engineers. Wild salmon, on the other hand, go to raves and listen to that crazy salmon music.
Nahh, I'm talking about eating salmon that were raised in the wild, like Alaska. Farm-raised salmon are fed corn and grain and they develop fatty acid profiles that aren't much different than most of our animal food sources.
In other words, the farm-raised variety is woefully deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids, which is pretty much the whole reason you'd want to eat them in the first place!
Sadly, most of the time when you order salmon in a restaurant, you're getting the farm-raised variety. It's best to ask before you order.
Most of you are well aware of the beneficial effects of salmon oil, but here's a mercifully brief refresher course in case you're not.
Salmon oil reduces the risk of coronary artery disease; controls hypertension; controls inflammation; prevents cancer; prevents degenerative eye diseases, and it may well boost your metabolism, making it easier for you to lose fat.
Keep in mind that the Omega-3 fatty acids in fish are, obviously, marine based, and that the Omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts and flaxseed are plant based. As such, it's best to include both kinds in your diet.
Ways to eat it: Bake it, broil it, steam it. Or just buy Salmon oil capsules or bottled liquids.
How much to eat: 24 ounces (3 8-ounce servings)
Note: Biotest is expected to have their own extremely pure Omega-3 fatty acid product in the warehouse any time now.
Grass-Fed Beef
Most of you probably know that the vast majority of beef in the US is corn-fed. Hell, they advertise it like it's a good thing: "We have corn-fed beef at $9.99 a pound!"
Well it's not a good thing.
Here's what I wrote about the subject in a previous article:
"Nowadays, most cattle spend an average of 60 to 120 days in feedlots where they're fattened up before being slaughtered. Obviously, most of us know that heavily marbled beef isn't exactly part of a healthy diet but there are other things going on that you need to know about. Feeding cattle corn instead of grass drastically upsets the balance of essential fatty acids found in their meat.
"The modern American diet is criminally short on Omega-3 fatty acids and these fatty acids, when consumed in optimal amounts, can potentially prevent coronary artery disease, hypertension, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and various inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. Conversely, the American diet is high in Omega-6 fatty acids. While Omega-6 fatty acids are important to health, too, bad things happen when the ratio of these fatty acids is altered; namely, the aforementioned maladies.
"Many scientists guess that man evolved eating an Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acid ratio of 1 to 1 from both meat and plant sources. An acceptable modern day ratio would be approximately 3 to 1. Trouble is, corn-fed cattle, in various studies, have exhibited ratios of 21 to 1, 11 to 1, and 20 to 1. Not good. Grass-fed cattle, on the other hand, exhibit ratios of 3 or 4 to 1.
"Similarly, the meat from grass-fed cattle contains significantly higher amounts of CLA, which supposedly lowers the risk of cancer."
I hope one part of that sunk in, the part about grass-fed cattle having a ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 of 3 or 4 to 1.
That makes grass-fed beef about as good a food as wild salmon. And we weight lifters shouldn't forget that grass-fed beef contains relatively large amounts of creatine. Maybe that's why we feel stronger when we eat it.
Lastly, grass-fed beef has a lot less saturated fat than corn-fed, and that in itself is noteworthy.
Ways to eat it: What, I gotta' tell you how to make a steak?
How much to buy: 24 ounces (3 8-ounce servings)
Walnuts
People who eat walnuts have fewer heart attacks. One study actually found an inverse relationship between walnut consumption and all deaths.
I don't know how a walnut could keep you from being hit by a runaway streetcar, but I do believe it's one healthful little nut. Walnuts are one of the few rich sources of plant-derived Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha linolenic acid), thus complimenting the animal-derived Omega-3 fatty acids we get from another Power Food, salmon.
They're also high in plant sterols, which reduce cholesterol. Combine that with their arginine-powered ability to keep the insides of blood vessels smooth and you can understand their effect on heart health.
In addition to all that, they're the nut with the highest anti-oxidant activity, and they contain rich amounts of magnesium and copper, two minerals that are typically deficient in the American diet.
Ways to eat them: By the handful, on top of a Grow! pudding, or on top of a salad.
How much to eat: 8 ounces (1-ounce or one small handful a day)
Olive Oil
Hell, if it were socially acceptable, I'd go to the bar and order a whisky with an olive oil chaser. That's how much I like this Power Oil.
A health study in 2005 compared the effects of different types of olive oil. The first type, "extra virgin" contains the highest amount of polyphenols, while the other olive oil was a lesser blend containing one-fifth the polyphenols in the first type.
Those using the extra virgin olive oil on their bread exhibited a marked increase in arterial wall elasticity, while those that ate the lesser stuff exhibited no change.
Lesson learned: use extra virgin olive oil.
Aside from making arterial walls more elastic, olive oil has many of the same benefits that walnuts do.
As far as bodybuilders and other athletes are concerned, adding olive oil to your meals is a necessity in that most of us, in an attempt to balance out our fat intake, have increased saturated fatty acid intake and Omega-3 intake while neglecting monosaturated fats like olive oil.
While other oils contain their fair share of monounsaturated fats, olive oil is the king with 72% of its fatty acid compliment being monounsaturated.
Want to control your food intake and lose fat? Steam some vegetables and drown them in olive oil and red chili flakes and serve with your favorite cut of meat. This simple act, done 5 to 6 times a week, will melt the pounds off.
Ways to eat it: By the tablespoon, on a salad, in a Grow! shake, or poured over your steamed vegetables.
How much to eat: 3 Tablespoons a day
Blueberries
If for some reason, you stubborn person you, were to only eat one food from my list, this is the one I'd recommend.
This humble little berry contains a greater number of antioxidants than any other known fruit or vegetable. Just one serving contains more antioxidants as five servings of carrots, apples, broccoli, or squash.
Just a couple of years ago, the Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ate one cup per day had a perpetual increase in the amount of antioxidants in their blood. Maintaining this physiologic state, they guessed, probably plays a big role in the prevention of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and degenerative eye diseases.
There's also a study that's probably of particular interest to readers of this site: people who ate large amounts of blueberries every day performed 5 to 6 percent better on tests of motor skills than a control group.
Ways to eat them: Buy them dried, fresh, or frozen (they're not a crop that's heavily treated with pesticides, which is often of concern when buying dried fruits).
Turn them into a jam and spread them on toast. Throw them into the blender with your Grow! Mix frozen ones into your oatmeal.
How much to eat: 1 cup a day
Flaxseeds
Flax seeds are, bar none, the best source of plant-derived Omega-3 fatty acids. Including them in a diet that contains reasonable amounts of saturated fats (about 30% of fat intake), reasonable amounts of olive oil and walnuts (about 30 to 40% of fat intake), and a combination of plant-derived Omega-3 fatty acids and animal or marine based Omega-3 fatty acids (grass-fed beef and salmon) along with a modest amount of Omega-6 fatty acids is probably the perfect prescription.
In addition to being a rich source of plant-derived Omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseeds also contain fiber, protein, and magnesium. They also contain lignins, which are phytoestrogens.
While I know the mere mention of phytoestrogens is enough to make you want to mainline a quart of pure Testosterone, a small amount of phytoestrogens isn't a bad thing. In fact, I've seen men lose their bitch tits simply by including flaxseeds or flax oil in their diet.
Ways to eat them: Make sure you grind your flaxseeds — the nutrients are difficult to absorb from the whole seed. Once they're ground, store them in small airtight jars and sprinkle them on your oatmeal, your salad, or into your Grow! shake.
How much to eat: About two tablespoons a day. That means you can grind up about a half-cup at a time.
Pumpkin
I don't expect you to go out every October and hoard pumpkins. Canned pumpkin is available all year round and the canned version is actually more nutritious than the raw version.
What makes pumpkin so cool is its synergistic blend of phytonutrients. In fact, pumpkin contains the richest supply of carotenoids known to man.
These carotenoids are suspected to modulate immune responses, enhance cell-to-cell communication, and protect against various cancers. One carotene in particular — alpha carotene — is even suspected by some to slow aging.
While you might assume that pumpkin is glycemically incorrect, you're probably thinking about the pumpkin puree that Granny uses to make her pies. Pure canned pumpkin, on the other hand, has only 42 calories a half-cup, along with 5 grams of fiber, which is more fiber than most breakfast cereals.
Ways to eat it:Mix a little in with Grow! and some Jell-O Instant Sugar-Free Fat-Free Pudding Mix and blend in skim milk until you get the desired consistency.
How much to eat: 1/2 cup 3-4 times a week
Spinach
The next time you order a salad, screw the typical Romaine salad or worse yet, the iceberg lettuce salad; spinach is where it's at.
Spinach is another one of those vegetables whose nutrients and phytonutrients display a wonderful synergy.
Consider that spinach contains carotenoids like zeaxanthin and beta-carotene, along with antioxidants like CoQ10 and glutathione, and the insulin modulator alpha lipoic acid. Not only that, but spinach is fairly rich in plant-derived Omega-3 fatty acids, too.
All of this equates to a vegetable that lowers homocysteine levels, risk of degenerative eye disease, and many types of cancer. In fact, there are epidemiological studies that show that the more spinach eaten, the lower the risk of almost everytype of cancer.
Ways to eat it: Spinach is a vegetable that should be eaten both raw and cooked. Cooking it makes the carotenoids more bioavailable, but it degrades Vitamin C and folate, so eating a combo of cooked and raw seems to be the best bet. Cook spinach in an omelet, or steam it and add olive oil and salt. Or make a raw salad and top it with walnuts and olive oil.
How much to eat: 18 ounces (raw) per week
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are on my list for one main reason, or rather, one main nutrient: lycopene. This member of the carotenoid family could be the silver bullet in preventing prostate cancer.
Consider the 1995 study that showed men who ate ten or more servings a week of tomatoes reduced their risk of prostate cancer by 35% and their risk of aggressive prostate cancer by 50%.
And while quite possibly being as potent an anti-oxidant as beta-carotene in general, lycopene is also thought to raise the skin's natural SPF (sun protection factor).
Unfortunately, this chemical is rare in foods so the next time you see a ripe, juicy tomato, give it a hug.
Unbeknownst to most, though, is that the coveted lycopene is bound up in the cell walls and fiber. That means that you pretty much have to eat cooked or processed tomatoes to get at the lycopene. That also means that tomato paste, barbecue sauce, and ketchup are valid sources of lycopene. Yipee!
Ways to eat it:Since lyopene needs fat to get it into the bloodstream, it's best to eat your tomatoes or tomato products with a bit of olive oil. You can also use sun-dried tomatoes in sandwiches, in addition to using salsa to top your meat dishes. And of course, there's always pizza.
How much to eat: 1 serving per day of processed tomato and 3-4 servings per week of fresh tomato
Turkey Breast
Hey, it's practically the leanest piece of meat on the planet...well, with the exception of Linday Lohan's emaciated chest. It's inexpensive and has a nice array of nutrients including the exotic selenium, but everybody in the business just loveschicken.
Chicken must have a helluva' good PR man because turkey is clearly superior in so many ways.
Want to know how lean turkey is? Three ounces of flank steak — the leanest beef available — has 4.5 grams of saturated fat. An identical amount of turkey has only 0.2 grams of saturated fat.
We called chicken to provide us with its stats, but nooooo. At the risk of sounding cliché, chicken was chicken.
Ways to eat it: The same way you'd eat chicken.
How much to eat: As much as your ever-lovin' heart desires or your wallet can afford.
Yogurt
A microscopic view of the beasties in yogurt.
My grandma Olga, a famous Finnish Powerlifter, once told me, "Little one, take care of your gastrointestinal tract and it'll take care of you."
Then she struck me with some salted herring.
Still, the lesson stuck with me.
Gastrointestinal problems are likely at the root of a lot of health problems. After all, if you can't digest food, assimilate its nutrients, and dispose of waste, what good are Power Foods?
Enter yogurt. And I'm talking about plain non-fat yogurt, not frozen yogurt or any of those sugary concoctions that are faintly disguised desserts.
Yogurt that contains live active cultures of bacteria encourages the growth of "good" bacteria and hampers the growth of the "bad".
Once you do that, you might help your body fight cancer, allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowl syndrome, ulcers, and diarrhea.
You might even increase nitrogen retention, so that you'll build more muscle from the proteins that you eat.
While live-culture yogurt is considered a "probiotic" in that it contains living beasties, you also need to ingest "prebiotics," which are nondigestible food stuffs that the beasties live on.
Luckily, a lot of the Power Foods I've listed contain prebiotics (broccoli, spinach, flax seeds, etc.).
Ways to eat it: Mix a tablespoon or two into your Grow! shakes, or add to oatmeal.
How much to eat: 1 cup per day
Shiitake Mushrooms
Mushrooms contain zinc, essential amino acids, and a host of vitamins, but I'm not really interested in all that.
The reason I've labeled Shiitake mushrooms as a power food is because they appear to possess some pretty interesting anti-viral properties, including some much-desired anti-cancer powers.
In fact, the Japanese have licensed a Shittake extract called Lentinan as an anti-cancer drug. It's shown promising effects on bowel, liver, stomach, lung, and ovarian cancers.
Apparently, Lentinan stimulates the production of T lymphocytes and natural killer cells.
Proponents of mushrooms like the shittake and others collectively call these fairly mysterious anti-viral and immuno-enhancing compounds Host Defense Potentiators (HDP).
While the proof of their powers isn't conclusive yet, I'm willing to make a small leap of faith and continue to include these 'shrooms in my diet.
Ways to eat them: Chopped up and thrown into spinach salads or an omellete.
How much to eat: 3 ounces per week
Off to the Grocery Store
Eat the foods on the list as often as you can. Once a week is better than zero times a week; twice a week is better than once a week....
Of course, the better you adhere to the training program or the nutritional program, the greater are the rewards, be they in physique, athletic ability, or iron-clad health.
www.t-nation.com
Berardi's Top 10 Tips
by Dr. John Berardi
I’ve been at this liftin’ thing for over a decade now. During this time I’ve been a junior national sport athlete, a national level bodybuilder, a physique model, a personal trainer, a strength and conditioning coach, a nutrition consultant, and an exercise and nutrition scientist, recently earning my Ph.D. (Of course, I had to plug that in there — the novelty of the whole Dr. JB thing still fires me up.) While all of that experience should make me feel like a veteran, come to think of it, I think I just feel old.
But hey, in some societies they actually revere the old for their experience and wisdom. So let’s pretend ours is one of them and humor me for a few minutes while I lay out ten of the most important lessons I’ve learned during my 14 years in the game.
Lesson #1: Everybody Needs More Protein
That’s right, ya heard me. And I’ll say it again, so brace yourself:
Everybody
Needs
More
Protein
Okay, perhaps I’m exaggerating. Certainly renal patients don’t need more protein. Nor do those guys who eat Low-Carb Grow! with a spoon (come on, don’t tell me I’m the only one). But for all of you weight trainers interested in being lean and muscular yet still stuck at that invisible one-gram-per-pound barrier, it’s time for a protein increase.
What’s with this universal 1g/lb stuff anyway? So many people have been parroting that recommendation lately I almost started to believe it’s true. But a good dose of Pubmed convinced me otherwise.
First of all, if we’re looking at protein "need," then regular weight trainers technically only "need" 0.8g/kg (perhaps even less). That’s only 0.36g/lb, folks. Sure, I know what you’re thinking. My PhD advisor (Dr. Lemon) has suggested more like 1.2 to 1.6g/kg, but that suggestion is only for those starting a brand new weight training program. Besides, break that down and it’s still only 0.54 to 0.72g/kg. So where did this 1g/lb thing come from?
Someone made it up, that’s where.
As I’ve discussed before in my Protein Prejudice article, there’s a difference between need and optimization. As a weightlifter I hope your goals are loftier than preventing death by protein malnutrition. Rather, I hope you’re trying to find the right amount to optimize your body composition.
Since ingesting more protein carries with it scores of body composition benefits, including more lean mass and less fat mass, it stands to reason that we should be playing around with the numbers a bit to find out what’s optimal. And that’s not just for the weight lifting community. Heck, if non-active people replaced a bunch of their crappy, refined carbs with protein, they’d have less body fat and a better cardiovascular risk profile.
So, in the end, if you’re looking to seriously improve your body composition and are still stuck on a lower protein intake, heed this lesson and eat more protein!
Lesson #2: Wanna Get Huge? Train Heavier—Much Heavier
This is a lesson that’s been fundamental to my own training and the training of my clients for the last ten years. My motto: When in doubt, add more weight to the bar.
My muscle building brethren, our muscles are designed for lifting heavy. In fact, when some people ask me why I’ve lifted weights for over a decade, my typical response is "because I can." In other words, lifting heavy stuff is what the body is designed to do.
Did you know that for every square centimeter of skeletal muscle cross sectional area, we can produce 3-4 kg (6.6 — 8.8 pounds) of tension? For a 154 pound man, that means over 48,400 pounds of tension can be generated. Did you know that there are guys in the world who weigh 165 and can deadlift 640 and squat 775? So what the heck is wrong with you? Hell, what’s wrong with me?
Often, when clients call me with a body composition goal in mind, the first thing I do is translate that goal into strength numbers. For example, when a 5’9" client comes to me at 160 and 12% fat hoping to get to 200 at 12% fat, I ask him how strong he thinks he’ll need to be to achieve that goal.
Silence.
I then mention that most 5’9" 200 pound guys I know can bench press at least 300, deadlift at least 450, and squat at least the same.
Telephone drops.
If you want to get bigger, you’d better start picking up heavier loads — today!
(Now, I know that some strength coaches don’t believe the same thing. And they’re entitled to their opinion. I’ll just avoid asking their clients for a spot next time I’m under a 400 pound bench press).
Lesson #3: Skinny Guys, If You Want To Get Big, You’d Better Eat Big!
This lesson is one I learned the hard way, being a former skinny guy. Of course, it’s not necessarily applicable to everyone out there trying to gain muscle mass, but if you’re a classic ectomorph, lean and lanky, the story below is the most important you’ll ever hear.
Once upon a time, there was a scrawny kid named John. After two years of training, at 5’8", scrawny John had only managed to hit an embarrassing 150 pounds at 10% body fat. With a goal of bench pressing his body weight, scrawny John toiled away for two years without reaching this achievement. Cursing the gods, believing he was doing "everything in his power" to gain muscle mass, scrawny John was about ready to give up and take up an endurance sport or something.
But just before exchanging his weight lifting belt for some cycling tights, he had an epiphany! A friend of scrawny John’s went away to a football training camp for a month and came back 15 pounds heavier. Begging for the secrets produced nothing. The friend told scrawny John that there weren’t any. Simply, he and the other guys at camp were taught to eat five or six big meals per day. Angry, scrawny John told him that he already did that.
But when scrawny John realized that he’d need to eat breakfast meals that consist of 12 whole eggs, four packets of plain instant oatmeal, and four slices of rye toast; lunches that consisted of three whole grain bagels, a pound of lean beef, and a huge salad; and dinners that consisted of a full pound of pasta, a few cups of broccoli, and a half pound of lean ground beef, he understood where he was going wrong. And not only did he adopt these breakfast, lunch, and dinner strategies, he began eating five whole grain bagels slathered with natural peanut butter and drinking a couple of liters of protein drink throughout the rest of the day.
Sound absurd? Well, not only does it sound absurd, it looked absurd. But, after two more years, scrawny John wasn’t so scrawny any longer.
As you can imagine, scrawny John was me. Utilizing these feeding techniques, I went from a 5’8" 150 pound guy (at 10% body fat) aspiring to bench press my own body weight, to a 210 pound guy (at 12% body fat) bench pressing 315 for multiple reps.
If you think you’ve "tried everything," think again. You’ve gotta eat big to get big.
Lesson #4: Stand On the Shoulders of Giants
As Issac Newton once said, "If I’ve seen further, it’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants." Of course, he was implying that his accomplishments were built on the backs of his previous mentors and the great scientists that came before him.
My first mentor, and the one who had the most impact, was a guy named Craig Bach. When I met him at the tender age of 18 years, he was a successful entrepreneur, an excellent national level bodybuilder, and a man wise beyond his years. At the time he took me under his wing, teaching me how to train like a madman, but that wasn’t all. He also taught me how to manage my finances, how to set goals, and how to focus on success. Without his encouragement and counsel, I might still be cooking home fries for the breakfast crowd at my dad’s restaurant.
Jim Dolan, my university Exercise Physiology instructor, also made a big impact. This guy was a no-nonsense educator who always challenged me to do more and to learn more. Every time I responded to his challenges, he gave me more. On top of that, he was just a cool guy, riding his Harley to school in the spring and taking a sabbatical every few years to drive his VW bus across the US.
Two other guys that have made a big impact on me have been Dr. Tim Ziegenfuss and Dr. Lonnie Lowery (fellow T-Nation nutrition studs). While these two are more like nerdy frat brothers, they have both made meaningful contributions to my work and view of this industry.
Who are your mentors in life and in the gym? Do you have any? If not, you’ll never reach your full potential, I promise you.
But be careful. When I say mentors, I don’t mean heroes or internet gurus. I mean real people that you can sit with, observe, model and ask questions of — people you respect, guys who take pride in living their lives according to a higher standard than most. Mentor with these individuals (whether it be under the iron, in academia, or in "real life") and expect to leapfrog over previous pre-conceived hurdles.
Stand on the shoulders of giants now and you’ll be the giant later.
Lesson #5: Expect Corrective Phases of Training
It makes me sad to walk in many gyms nowadays. It disheartens me to see trainees lifting so light yet expecting serious progress. The question races through my mind, why does this generation of lifter avoid serious, fearless, heavy loading?
Perhaps it’s because so many S&C coaches have taken to mocking injured lifters for their "training indiscretion." It’s as if the coaches believe that athletes should be able to train without ever so much as a strain, sprain, or muscle tear. Uh, guys, training injuries are inevitable. The man who's trained hard and heavy for over a decade without any injuries is a lucky man indeed.
So what’s one to do when the inevitable occurs? Well, for starters, keep training. Let me clue you in on my basic training philosophy: I never take extended periods of time off from the gym. Sure, if I’m overtrained, I’ll be sure to take a week off and ease back into the gym, working systems of the body that will allow me to expend energy without taxing my recovery resources. For example, if my CNS is fried, I’ll take a week off and then ease back into the gym with hypertrophy type training or, if it’s really bad, some lighter aerobic work that won’t overload the nervous system.
This philosophy is in place because, like most of you, I love being lean and muscular. So fatigue, injuries and overuse aren't excuses for staying completely out of the gym and, as an effect, letting my conditioning slip away.
So what can you do in order to keep training while strained, sprained or torn? First, seek a competent manual therapist. Find a guy who does Active Release (ART) or functional integrated therapy (chiropractic + fascial work + acupuncture + Active Release type work) and start getting treatment right away.
Second, in the gym, find movements that don’t hurt the injured body part or lighten up the load on movements that do bother it.
Third, consult an expert to figure out the root of the problem (many times, muscle imbalances are to blame) and train to correct it. For example, many shoulder problems are the result of an anterior-posterior imbalance in strength and flexibility. As a result, it's wise to spend your corrective phase doing three times as much posterior work as anterior work.
So, in the end, it’s important to keep training heavy. However, expect a few corrective phases here and there. These phases are a great opportunity to focus on physique balance. There’s no excuse for staying out of the gym during such a phase.
Lesson #6: When Trying to Improve Your Body, Use Outcome Based Decision Making
Outcome based decision making is a fancy phrase describing my use of the scientific method in helping people achieve body composition changes. How do most trainees do it?
Bob wants to get big—real big—by next summer. So he picks up a workout program from Flex magazine (after all, Jay Cutler does it and he’s real big) and follows it for a while. Every so often Bob checks his body weight and, of course, he’s constantly looking in the mirror to see if he’s any more "buff." Once Bob finds he’s not progressing, he picks up some other program from Flex and repeats this process over and over again until he gives up on the weight training thing. Sound random and haphazard? You bet. Is this how most trainees do it? You bet.
I don’t recommend this approach. Rather, real progress comes from setting discrete, measurable goals, choosing regular measurement intervals to see if the goals are being met, and pre-planned strategies in case they aren’t. For an example of how Bob might use this approach, see below:
http://www.t-nation.com/img/photos/0...t/image001.gif
Starting at the lower right hand corner, you’ll notice the box labeled "Follow Plan." At this point you can assume "Follow Plan" to mean following a baseline nutritional intake complete with good food choices, a moderate to high protein intake, good post-workout nutrition, and few meals that contain lots of carbohydrate and fat. (For a better idea of what this entails, "Follow Plan" means eating according to the seven rules laid out in my previous article HERE.)
Now, once Bob’s adjusted his diet to conform to these seven practical habits (because he’s probably way off base nutritionally) and followed them for a few baseline weeks, he can start thinking about appraising his success and making necessary changes.
Here’s how: After two weeks of following the new nutritional plan, he assesses his progress objectively (i.e. makes body weight and body fat measurements). If Bob is closer to his long term goal then he simply continues to repeat the plan until, of course, the answer becomes "No."
If the answer is "No" then he needs to eat more food. To begin the adjustment process, Bob increases his food intake by about 250kcal. After adding 250kcal into his diet, Bob follows this adjustment for two more weeks. At the end of these two weeks, it’s time for another reassessment. And so on.
Looking over the process above; it seems pretty simple, right? It is. The process is really nothing more than a systematic way of testing your program for effectiveness. It need not take more than a few minutes every few weeks.
If you can patiently follow this process systematically you'll find your patience is rewarded by steady progress and very few "unexpected" results. After all, by adjusting on a bi-weekly basis, there's very little risk of packing on too much fat when trying go gain mass or of losing too much muscle when trying to get lean.
Lesson #7: It’s Sometimes All Right To Not Have Training Goals
After lesson #6 you might be all "goaled" out. That’s good because the next lesson I want to share with you is the following — it’s sometimes okay to have no training goals. Blaspheme? I think not!
Train for long enough and you’ll come to realize that sometimes in life you need to consciously slip one set of goals onto the backburner of your priority stove and place another set of goals on the front where it’s hot.
For some, that means slipping their custom birdhouse construction hobby on their personal back burner so that they can focus on their health, physique and muscle strength. For some, they need to go in the opposite direction. Since it’s impossible to put all the important things in our life on the hottest burners, it’s important to give ourselves permission to juggle which things go where.
But make no mistake — putting something on the back burner doesn’t mean rank neglect. When I say that it’s sometimes okay to have no training goals, I’m not saying it’s okay to stop training and morph into a pudgy, hypercholesterolemic slob. Rather, I’m saying that it’s acceptable to simply maintain your physique while focusing on something else for a while.
For me, I’ve spent this year with training on the back burner. Again, I’m not neglecting my physique but instead I’m simply maintaining what I’ve built while focusing on other things.
As with most things in life, building something from the ground up is much harder than maintaining it. Whether you’re "maintaining" your professional life in order to grow your physique or "maintaining" your physique in order to grow your profession (as I am now), be conscious of how you’re allocating your resources. Don’t get stuck in the "zone of mediocrity" where you’re always dabbling yet never committing.
I can afford to "back burner" my training now for the very reason that I expressly committed to it in the past and reaped the results of my intense efforts.
Lesson #8: Have 10% Foods
It’s unfortunate that most trainees expect perfection from themselves. Perhaps it’s because in athletics we’re told stories of certain individuals giving 110%. As the great coach John Wooden says, "You can only give what you have and you only have 100%. No one is an overachiever. We’re all underachievers to a different extent. I prefer to judge individuals on how close they come to 100%, knowing that no one can ever achieve perfection…"
If some trainees miss a single meal or eat one food not on their plan (regardless of the circumstances surrounding these less-than-perfect decisions), their failure to achieve that impossible 110% effort sets in motion a psychological chain of events that leads to frustration and the inability to get right back on the plan. It’s as if once a single sub-optimal decision is made, the all-or-nothing mentality sets in and BAM, they’re back to nothing.
But here’s the rub. It doesn’t have to be this way. In my 14 years as an athlete, weightlifter and coach, I’ve come to realize that 100% nutritional discipline is never required for optimal progress. The difference, in results, between 90% adherence to your nutrition program and 100% adherence is negligible.
So allow yourself the extra 10% wiggle room. Do you like frappuccinos at Starbucks? If so, have some during your 10% allotment. (Also, if you’re a man and admit to liking frappuccinos, either get off the Clomid or take some TRIBEX immediately!) My favorite 10% food is pizza. Once or twice a week I allow myself to have some.
This 10% wiggle room will allow you the freedom to eat a few extra things not on your menu without the guilt and subsequent psychological crash that usually accompanies such perceived transgressions.
Lesson #9: Unleash The Beast (No, not that beast!)
Lately I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend on the weightlifting related web sites and message boards. Men and women everywhere are spending so much time talking about training and nutrition that they hardly have any time left to train.
And when they do train, they're so busy counting time under tension numbers and rest intervals — following exercise plans by the numbers — that they never really focus on unleashing the beast and pushing up big weights.
I’ve heard people talk about finding inner balance and peace while training. Inner balance and peace is for yoga. Mention those words during a deadlift session and I’ll beat you with a 45 pound plate.
To train hard and develop an outstanding physique, you must "find the anger" within and unload it on the bar. Not only will you feel better when you’ve done the workout, having activated your lower, reptilian brain centers, but you’ll also have stimulated the body to improve through brute acts of force and strength.
Unleashing the beast, though, is tough work and many find this work far too hard to do. So rather than going into this zone, they try to replace raw, hard lifting with the acquisition of knowledge; the more they learn the better they feel about their wussified lifting protocol.
This is the famous tabata method everybody raves about. Supposedly the best way to burn fat as it works both aerobic and anaerobic systems at the same time.
The Tabata Method
Fat Loss in Four Minutes
by Dan John
A couple of years ago, a company came out with an exercise machine that guaranteed results in only four minutes a day. The main problem? The $12,000 price tag. My car doesn’t cost that much. I’m not sure I've ever spent that much on anything, including my education.
Well, I'm going to save you a lot of money today because I'm going to show you how to do the same thing without an overpriced machine. This "top secret" training method may do more for you than all your other training combined and leave you with 23 hours and 56 minutes to live the rest of your day.
But there's a price to pay. Think exhaustion, vomit and pools of sweat.
Enter the Tabata Method
Tabata is the name of a Japanese researcher who discovered an interesting way to increase both anaerobic and aerobic pathways at the same time. It's one of those strange training programs that seems to fit across disciplines: it's excellent for bicyclists, speed skaters, Olympic lifters, or the person looking to lose fat quickly.
This training method is so simple, yet so incredibly difficult, that athletes tend to try it once, acknowledge its greatness, and then vow to never speak its name again. What is it? It's simple: take one exercise and perform it in the following manner:
1) For twenty seconds, do as many repetitions as possible.
2) Rest for ten seconds
3) Repeat seven more times!
That's it! You're done in four minutes! Oh, and that thing you're trying to brush off your face? That would be the floor.
Eight sets of "as many reps as you can get done," followed with a brief ten second rest— simple and effective. The two best exercise options for the Tabata method are the front squats and the "thruster," which I'll describe in a bit.
It helps to have someone record the reps of each set for you because, well, you won’t remember after you pass out. I use the "lowest rep number" of any of the eight sets as my measurement to compare workout to workout. If you go too heavy, that number might be two. If you go too light, you might find yourself getting around 15 reps or more.
Before we talk about the exercises, let’s take a moment to be perfectly clear about what we're doing. This isn't "eight sets of eight," although the goal of doing eight reps in each of the twenty second clusters is about right. Instead it's "as many reps as I can get in" during the twenty seconds, followed by ten seconds rest.
And by the way, ten seconds is not racking the bar, getting a drink, talking to the cute girl on the bike, looking at the clock, walking back to the bar, chalking up, adjusting the belt, talking to a friend, then doing the next set. Ten second is ten seconds! No cheating!
Tabata Exercises
You need to choose an exercise that uses a large number of muscles. I suggest the front squat. Now, you may argue, why not the back squat? Well, it's hard to dump the bar quickly into the rack with back squats, while with front squats, you can simply fall into it and start your ten second rest.
With something like a military press, you won’t be using enough muscles to allow you to survive in the last minute; you might only get one or two reps with your shoulders on fire. Deadlifts have been tried, but most people get a little worried about injuries doing them Tabata-style.
The front squat might be the single best Tabata lift. Having said that, if you don’t know how to front squat correctly, the Tabata method might teach you to lift better than a thousand coaches. In the four minutes, it's easy to get 64 to 70 reps, which teaches the nervous system better than a PowerPoint presentation.
The bar will be held in the "front" of the body, with the fingers relaxed and the bar resting on the clavicles with the elbows high. Sit down "between the legs." This actually gets easier in the third and fourth minute as you just start to "drop" back through. As you rise back up, you don’t need to lock out the knees; in fact, don’t even think about it. Just get up and go back down.
Weight on the bar? Let’s just say this: a guy with a 465 pound front squat puked with only 95 pounds on the Tabata front squat. Generally, I urge people to go "light," like 65 to 95 pounds the first time. There are those in this world who've gone up to 155 pounds and still got "eights" in the last twenty seconds, but those are very rare people!
The other great Tabata exercise is the "thruster." The thruster is one of the greatest lifts no one has ever heard of in the gym. Take two dumbbells and hold them at shoulder height. Squat down, keeping the dumbbells on the shoulders. As you rise up, press the bells to the overhead lockout position. You can either press as you rise or use the momentum to help "kick" the bells overhead. I find that I do a little bit of both in the four minutes.
Thrusters do things to your heart rate and breathing that I honestly can’t describe. Go light! A 35 pound dumbbell in each hand is a very difficult thruster workout! Check your ego at the door for the first two minutes.
Tabata Tips
You need to be able to see a wall clock with a second hand during your four minutes of fun. Stop at twenty seconds, rack the bar (if you choose the front squat), rest ten seconds, grab the bar and go again. Watching the clock seems to help with the focus.
And remember this: you really shouldn’t consider doing much after the Tabata workout. Your lungs will be going like a locomotive engine. Go ahead and plan anything you like, but don’t be surprised if it just doesn’t happen. I keep the family dog nearby to chase the carrion birds away while I rest on the sidewalk.
The hardest thing about this workout is staying focused for four minutes. Don’t let your hands leave the bar or dumbbells, if you can help it. After you put the bar in the rack during the front squat, stay right there, an inch or two back from the bar, and stare at the second hand of the clock.
If you do thrusters, put the dumbbells on a bench and watch the clock with your hands ready. This little trick of staying with the weight seems to help make those ten seconds seem like, well, not much, really! But at least you don’t have to move much to get the weights again.
I do either Tabata front squats or Tabata thrusters about twice a month. I’m sure someone will comment, "If it's so good, why don’t you do it every day?" Go ahead, try it and report back after the second day.
240 Seconds of Pain
Why should you do this workout? The Tabata program might be the single best "fat burning workout" that I know. It might only be four minutes, but you seem to keep sweating and breathing hard for a long, long time afterwards. Moreover, it seems to teach the body the proper method of squatting far easier than all the instruction in the world.
One other thing: Tabata truly teaches a person the mental focus needed to push past pain and reach his body comp or athletic goals. It'll save you 12,000 bucks, too!
Good article.
Why don't elite olympic power lifters in the lower weight classes have the same fat percent as say, elite marathon runners? :)
Because the amount a powerlifter eats is phenomenal, even the lighter ones. They are trying to get the most bang for there buck out of every muscle, where as a marathon runner just wants to be fitter and have great recovery....hence they dont have to eat as many fats/proteins as a powerlifter.Quote:
Originally Posted by md
And some of the olympic lifters are EXTREMELY cut. Look up a guy named Pyrros Dimmas. Amazing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamoie
Funny that. The marathon runners and iron man competitors I'm involved with can't get enough in their cake holes due to their energy expenditure. Both power and endurance athletes need tremendous amounts of calories per kg of body weight during heavy training. Both want to be fitter (in different ways) and both want optimal recovery. :)
http://www.ote.gr/grsp/english/img/pyrros1.jpg
Not much fat on this guy.
Md Advocados by the sack full.
I'm a distance runner slash boxer - I think distance runners can have lower body fat percentages because they don't eat as much protein as bodybuilders/weight lifters/power athletes as they don't need to maintain so much muscle. Also we spend a large amount of our training with our heart rates in the fat burning zone wheras compeitive boxing training will bring your heart rate up a lot higher.
I have to be really careful to eat enough protein otherwise I just shrink into nothing but a chunky pair of legs - my male trianing partner once told me I have a bloke's legs but really I think most chicks are more likely to have chunky legs than guys which is why male drag queens usually have sexier legs than us.
If we don't eat much protein I guess it's logistically easier to miss out on the fat contained in some meats and oils meat is cooked in. I knew an elite Kenyan marathoner who was over 6 feet tall and weighed only 64 kg - but he felt crap and was injured a lot of the time so I'm not neccessarily sure marathoners should always aspire to the low body fat percentages they do.
Anyway Thanks for the articles - soooo much funnier and more entertaining to read than the "one unit of dishwashing means you can eat one unit of weight watchers minced cardboard" crap that is on womens sites. I have been referring some of your articles to my friends and they love em too :-)