Websites Worth Checking Out

If you look at the about page I wrote when I started this blog, I promised that I would “provide people the resources…leading them to new blogs and other content to follow.” Now I’m going to do so. As you’ll notice, this list is a bit hetero-normative (thank you, Lily). However, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you learn.

Not about lifting

Badass of the week is exactly what it sounds like. The author does profiles of extraordinary characters. Yes, they are often men, and often war heroes. And yes, they are amazing. This site is a great source of humility and inspiration. In a world where we’re bombarded by the mundane and mediocre, this site constantly reminds me how great human beings can be.

Kratos Guide is my favorite website of all time. It hasn’t been updated in an excruciatingly long time, but every one of its articles is worth reading. They provide humility and much-needed perspective on life. My two favorites are “16 Habits You Should Do Every Day”, and “No Regrets”. The first is an eye-opening reminder of how much time we have, how much of it we squander, and how much we could get done if we would schedule efficiently. The second is, like many articles on the site, a gripping threat to enjoy life before it is over.

About Lifting

If you pay any attention to the sad state of the health of Americans, you know that the fitness industry is cheating us and ripping us off like a deaf guy buying CDs. There isn’t money in selling pushups, heavy weights, hard work, walking paths, or eating less. But there is a heck of a lot of it in selling supplements, treadmills, gadgets, workout videos, books, gym memberships, and magazine subscriptions. Yet the catch is that if people actually see the results that they want, they might realize they don’t need all these fancy gadgets and knick-knacks to get in shape. So the industry often sells things that don’t really work. Maybe they’ll bring enough short-term results to encourage the helpless users to keep going and keep buying stuff, but not long term. Actual results would ruin their business model.

Luckily, some people have discovered the light and figured their way out of this mess. They don’t work for magazines or supplement companies. They even have real jobs. But they walk the walk. They write about lifting and fitness, and they actually know their stuff, because they live it. I’m not even going to try to distill their knowledge into this post. Do yourself the favor or reading it yourself.

Martin Berkhan – Anything I write can hardly do him justice. Also known as the guy who made Intermittent Fasting popular, Berkhan runs a blog that he updates occasionally with articles that have more science than most people have seen in their entire lives. He knows his stuff, and a look at his personal pictures and client results does all the preaching he needs. Basically, the master of getting and being lean, without wasting your time and effort on useless methods.

Jamie Lewis – An angry, well educated powerlifter that is determined to destroy all of the world records in the 181 class. Lewis recently set a world record in the squat in the 181 pound class. He knows his stuff, and he has the heart to educate the world about it for free. He doesn’t update his blog that often, but when he does, its gold. The archives also go back for a few years, so there’s a lot to read. Note: entries are vulgar and NSFW, so prepare yourself.

Paul Carter—Another man that knows a thing or two about lifting. Watching him dumbbell press 150 pound dumbbells speaks for itself. Paul posts his workouts on his blog almost daily, often writing training articles as well. He adds another element of depth by posting his personal thoughts on the world, and is definitely a man worth emulating.

That’s all I’ve got. Try them out; the internet may give you something productive after all.

Bulking up

So, you’re bulking, huh? You’re going to gain 8 pounds of muscle this summer? You’re going to gain a pound per week, for the entire year? Ok, good. Have fun. This post isn’t for you.

Or maybe it is. By all means, do all of those things. But when they don’t work out exactly as you had planned, come back and read this article. I’m not saying you can’t bulk up, but there is a huge information gap. Most people that try to “bulk up”, myself included, end up gaining a bunch of weight, mostly fat, then “cutting”, and ending up either at the same size as they originally were, or only a few pounds heavier. It is incredibly frustrating. But it doesn’t have to be.

“I finally bulked to 250 pounds!” Source: comicadze.com

Yes, I’ve been there. I’ve tried it the hard way. I had a blast, gaining 34.6 pounds in 6 months. It wasn’t all muscle. Yes, I was getting stronger. But I still weighed 198 pounds, while benching 200 pounds. It was not impressive at all, and yet, when I did it, I thought I was he-man or something. I just assumed that all my weight was muscle, disregarding the larger waist as a side effect of “having large obliques” or something ridiculous. Not that people don’t get thicker waists from heavy lifting and a strong core, but they don’t gain 4 inches on them in 6 months.

I know, it sounds like I was just completely blissful. But be careful; turning a bulk into an obesity transformation it isn’t as hard as it seems. Most of my fat was not flopping around in the wind; I didn’t look like a bowl of jello. Yet, had I continued down the path of gaining weight at that rate, things could’ve gotten ugly.

If I pinched my stomach, it was still pretty hard, so I figured I was good. My waist was expanding, and so were my legs, but like I said, I was able to fool myself that it was muscle.

As soon as I started cutting, I realized what was going on. No, I wasn’t jiggling like jello, but there was fat being lost. It was under my muscles; literally under and inside my muscles, in what is called intramuscular fat.  “Intramuscular fat or Intramuscular triglycerides (IMTG) is located throughout  skeletal and is responsible for the marbling seen in certain cuts of beef.”  Then, on top of that, there was the “Visceral fat or abdominal fat[6] also known as organ fat or intra-abdominal fat, [which] is located inside the abdominal cavity packed between the organs (stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, etc)”.

Intramuscular fat, the fat inside the muscle. Source: kansascitysteaks.com

When I cut down, I dropped weight like a rock, going down to 176 before I knew it. Even then, I was a bit chubbier than I had been at 164. Going from 198 to 176 took about 4 months, the entire journey from 164 to 176 around 10 months. Then, lets assume that I had 4 extra pounds of fat at 176 than I had at 164, so I had really only gained 8 pounds of muscle in 10 months. That is a gain, but it was very slow. Now, looking back, if I had just stayed lean, and slowly added pounds without trying to gain as much weight as possible, I could have avoided the whole chubby phase, and quite likely would have gained more muscle during those 10 months.

This leads me to my first point about bulking up. Remember to consider the composition of the weight you are gaining. Sure, I may have gained 36 pounds, but how much of it was muscle?

I know you are going to disregard that last point when you are a novice; just remember that I warned you. If you are anything like me, you are/were convinced that you simply couldn’t gain weight at all, and were determined to do so just to prove that you could. That is perfectly natural. Go wild. But be aware that there is a better way: slow bulking.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Before we get to slow bulking, I want you to consider the chicken-or-egg dilemma I have been wrestling with for the past few years: if you want to put on muscle mass, do you up your lifting or your eating first? I’ll admit, during my “bulk”, I was convinced that the eating had to go up first. Now, I’m not so sure.

For some reason, bodybuilding culture (read: bodybuilding magazine culture) is enamored with the idea that bodybuilding is mostly nutrition, and lifting comes secondary. That is incredibly wrong. Does that mean that I can start eating like a professional bodybuilder, and will soon look like him? No. Goodness no. I’d have to be lifting the same weights he is. If not, I would just turn into a blob (which is exactly what I did).

Therefore, my second point is this: up your lifting first, then let your eating catch up. Muscles are like engines to move your body. If you just put more gas in them, and they don’t need it, they’ll just keep it in the tank. Eventually, the tank will be full, and you’ll have to put another tank in if you want to keep storing gas. However, if you make the engine bigger, it needs more gas to run. Then, you can add that gas, and you won’t have to get another tank. Now, substitute the word ‘muscles’ for ‘engine’ and the word ‘stomach/fat stores’ for ‘tank’, and you’ll see where I’m coming from.

Building the engine

Now you may be wondering, how can you build this engine? Well, simply, do more volume. Do more sets, do more reps, or any combination thereof, and you will grow. No, I don’t know if it is better to do 100 x 10 x 10 (pounds x reps x sets) = 100 total reps with 100 pounds = 10,000 pounds tonnage, or to do 150 x 5 x 10 = 50 total reps with 150 pounds = 7,500 pounds tonnage. But what I do know is that increasing tonnage is good. Doing more, within your limits, is good. Besides, this is a beginner’s post. At this point, you should stop worrying about all of that, and just go lift and pay your dues.

Before you get all excited, if you are a beginner, take some time to learn the form for the movements. Have someone teach it to you. Watch videos of how to do it on youtube. Make sure you do lots of lower-back and ab work to get a solid base. Don’t jump into deadlifting right away. Work on your rows, work on chinups, work on your incline pressing strength (incline presses require much less form than flat bench presses). Gradually add in complicated lifts like deadlifts, bench press, and cleans. At this point, the goal is to focus on ingraining proper form of these lifts by practicing them as much as possible. Paul Carter outlines a solid beginner program that he used to add 7 pounds of muscle on his 13 year old daughter in his wonderfully candid and straight to the point masterpiece book, Strength-Life-Legacy. I would outline it here, but don’t want to steal his stuff. However, the book and his blog are definitely worth checking out for a non-corrupt, non-anabolic drug look at lifting.

There are millions of programs out there, and most of them work. Yet people get so confused over which ones are better, and get overwhelmed by choice. Well, if you must do one of these, just pick one. It doesn’t really matter which one you pick. 5 x 5, 5/3/1, 10 x 10, traditional bodybuilding split, Pavel’s bear program, DeLorme method, Chaos and Pain, the Lift-Run-Bang program, whatever. They will all work. All you have to do is do them, and do them consistently. If you continue to do increase your total tonnage (weight x reps), your muscles will want to grow. Then, boom, you’ll start to get hungry, and you’ll gain weight, almost effortlessly (well, the eating part of it will be effortless).

Now, I know you’re still worried about how many days a week to lift, and which program is best, and so on and so forth. Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that I don’t know which program is best for you, and the good news is also that I don’t know which program is best for you. All of these programs with predetermined rest days and set and rep numbers will work, but you need to realize what they are: cookie-cutter programs. They are very conservative, and will work for just about anyone. As Jamie Lewis likes to say, they are low risk, low reward. They are relatively low in terms of volume, to make sure you won’t get hurt, and are relatively simple, so everyone can do them. But they are probably selling you short of your potential.

It isn’t that there is anything inherently wrong with these programs. They just don’t take into account individual differences, especially the recovery ability of new lifters. Yes, I know what you are thinking: “I’d have to take steroids to lift more than 3 or 4 days a week.” I was under that same impression for years, brainwashed by people like Stuart McRobert, the pessimistic author of Brawn, who created routines entirely based off of making sure that you don’t overtax your frail body. That makes me sad, and thank goodness it isn’t necessary. How in the world would we have survived as a species if we couldn’t recover and adapt to extreme exercise?

I’m about to say something bold, and you don’t have to try it. But you’re going to anyway, because it is great and works. If you are a beginner (any of your lifts are less than these: 1.25x bodyweight bench, 1.5x bodyweight squat, 2x bodyweight deadlift), start lifting 6 days a week. With such light weights, you can’t really do that much damage anyways. 2 days squatting, 2 days benching, 2 days pulling. Don’t go to failure every set. Just put in volume. You can either do lots of low rep sets (10 sets of 3) with heavy weights, or less high rep sets (5 sets of 8). Heck, you can do anything you want, just do lots of it, okay?

Six days a week is not the end-all-be-all split, even for beginners. But try it. Start with a lot, and if you find that it is too much for you, do less. Stop underselling yourself by default. Grind it out.

Food

This, like lifting, is a personal thing. However, there are a few things that must remain constant. Firstly, base your diet around protein. If you are lifting consistently, get a lot of protein. It isn’t going to hurt you. If you don’t believe me, read Dietary Protein and Resistance Exercise, by Lonnie Lowery, PhD, RD, then tell me I’m wrong. As for how much protein, use 1g/lb bodyweight as a target. But more than that won’t hurt either. Protein must remain high, no matter what.

The variables in your diet will be carbohydrates and fats. I’m not going to rehash what has already been written millions of times about how much to get, because everyone seems to have their own opinion. However, what I will say is this: if you want to gain weight, add more carbs and fats. If you want to lose it, cut carbs first.

No, I don’t support no carb diets, because I don’t think they work long-term. If you do weekly carb-ups, that can work, however. I personally like to cycle my carbs. On rest days (or light(er) workout days), I’ll have high protein, high fat, low carb. On lifting (heavier days), I’ll have high protein, high carb, low fat. If you want a more thorough explanation of why that works, read Anthony Mychal’s article here.

Meal timing? I don’t think it matters much. That 3 hour rule, where you’re muscles will evaporate if you don’t eat every 3 hours, is not real. It really takes around 24 hours, so go out and have a good time, stop carrying your chicken around, weirdo (or maybe that is just me). I’ve become enamored with intermittent fasting lately, and have found that it is pretty easy to both lose and gain weight on it, without ever getting chubby. Read more about that on leangains.com.

 

In summary:

–remember to consider the composition of the weight you are gaining

-up your lifting first, then let your eating catch up

– do more volume; increasing tonnage is good

-learn the form for the movements

-base your diet around protein

Learn from people better than you. Ask their advice, read their articles. Worry about getting your lifts up before you worry about eating 6,000 calories per day. Learn the movements. Do more volume. Put in work, and reap the rewards.

Source: simplyshredded.com

 

Works Cited:

“Visceral Fat.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 08 Mar. 2012. Web. 07 Aug. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visceral_fat&gt;.

“Intramuscular Fat.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 July 2012. Web. 07 Aug. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intramuscular_fat&gt;.

Why Every Woman Should Do Strength Training

To put it simply, every woman should do some form of strength training simply because the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be. That’s what it all comes down to.

A lot of girls will have an “exercise routine” that revolves entirely around running, the elliptical, and some ab exercises. This sounds great, but there is a tiny problem: none of these exercises really build muscle. Sure, running builds up calves and hip flexors, but they are small muscles. The elliptical definitely stresses many of the leg muscles, and even the arms (if you want to consider the arm handles on the machine), but it is such low resistance that it won’t build hardly any muscle at all. Finally, the ab workouts most women do are super high rep cardio-fests that don’t build any muscle size either.

I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t want to get big bulky muscles”. Now let’s forget that, and think some things through. Firstly, what happens when you do these cardio workouts? Well, you burn some calories. Yes, I have heard that cardio boosts your metabolism, blah blah blah. But let’s also consider the common idea in the bodybuilding world to be careful of doing too much running, because it burns muscle mass. See where I’m getting at? When a girl does cardio, without any muscle building activities, she loses muscle mass, causing her metabolism to decline even further.

Fat does not burn fat. Bones do not burn fat. Muscles burn fat! Therefore, the more muscle mass you have, the more fat you’ll be burning when you’re sitting on the couch and thinking how much you hate running.

Bulky Muscles?

You simply can not look like this by accident. It takes decades of focused effort; stop worrying that it will happen to you “by accident”.  Source: bodybuilding.com

Well, ladies, I promise you that you won’t have huge muscles when you start doing strength training. You won’t start to look like Iris Kyle. How do I know this? I know this because it is very well known that top-level female bodybuilders use huge amounts of steroids. There is no denying it. Google it if you don’t believe me. The female figure simply doesn’t look like that naturally; it doesn’t have the hormone capacity to carry that much muscle mass with that level of leanness.

Let’s pretend that, for a moment, females have the potential to look like Iris without steroids. Let’s assume that males and female have the same hormonal profile. How many guys do you see on a daily basis that actually are big and muscular? Not many. There are countless guys in gyms that are desperately trying to not be scrawny and small, and that have huge amounts of trouble gaining muscle mass. So as a girl, stop worrying that you will suddenly get huge and bulky. You won’t. Unless you want to.

The wonderful (and sometimes horrible) thing about muscles is that they don’t just start growing by magic and continue to grow out of control. If you decide that your legs are getting bigger than you want, all you have to do is lift less weight or do fewer total reps. That’s it. Yes, if you start squatting, with the goal of squatting as heavy as possible, your legs will start to get bigger. But if you want them smaller, all you have to do is to squat with lighter weights, or do lower repetition sets.

Marzia Prince, IFBB bikini pro, fitness competitor, fitness supermodel. Yes, she lifts weights. But no, she doesn’t have bulky muscles. Source: gasparinutrition.com

 

Marzia Prince, professional bikini competitor who weighs in at 127 (contest)-137 (offseason) at a height of 5 feet, 9 inches, describes her favorite exercises as “squats, deadlifts, sprints, and bicep curls” (source). She even states on the bio section of her website: “Specializing in women’s training, she women overcome many common training myths. One popular training myth is that they will get “big” if they train with weights. She helps them understand how to train, use the right supplements, and eat the proper nutrition to get their best body ever.”  Moral of the story: stop worrying about getting huge because you lift.

Where to start

Honestly, if you are a woman who hasn’t strength trained before, you are very lucky, because you don’t need much equipment to start. You can start with basic bodyweight exercises and a light (10-50 pound) dumbbell, which will last you for quite a while if you hate the idea of getting a gym membership. You can even go a long way without a dumbbell. Don’t waste your time with isolation movements like dumbbell curls and tricep extensions. Start with big, compound exercises:

Pushups*-start pushing against a wall, progress to leaning against a counter, then progress to pushing on your knees, then start doing full pushups. When you can do 3 sets of 20-40, you can move to the next progression.

Chinups-start with negatives, where you jump up and lower yourself as slowly as you can. When you can do 3 sets of 20 negatives, start doing full pull-ups.

Leg raises*-start lying on the ground, and progress to hanging on a bar.

Squats*-Do them. Try to progress towards doing one legged-ones. If you have a dumbbell, do goblet squats.

Back Extensions-the easiest way to do these is called the “superman”. Lay down on your stomach, and raise your arms and legs at the same time. Hold for a second, and lower. Do lots of these.

Rows: If you have a dumbbell, do these, one arm at a time, the other arm leaning against a chair or low object.

*See the book called Convict Conditioning for more detailed progressions of these.

Once you are used to the back extensions and bodyweight squats, you are ready to learn to do weighted (barbell) squats and deadlifts, if you want. You can stay with the bodyweight versions, and probably look pretty good, if you keep doing them and progressing to harder variations, or even maintaining what you’ve been doing. If you do decide to do the weighted deadlifts and squats, they will be your backbone of lower-body work. You can also do lunges instead of squats if you want. While almost any rep and set scheme will work, start with higher (12-15+) reps so you’ll use a weight that isn’t too heavy.

Don’t worry about the pull-ups; they will get easier as you practice them. Especially if you are like most women, and just want to have arms that are “toned” and “firm”, pull-ups and pushups will probably be all you need to do that. However, if you want more than that, don’t be afraid to try bench pressing. I simply didn’t put it in there because many girls are loathe to do it.

I’m not going into a detailed explanation of form, but I will say that it is very important. You might as well not lift if you’re doing it wrong. To learn form, your best bet is to have a strength coach teach you the right way (not a gym personal trainer, but an actual strength coach for an athletics team). If that isn’t available, watch youtube videos that demonstrate the form. Read about the form. Practice with light weights, making sure your form is perfect before you put on more weights. I recommended the back extensions because they will teach you to properly arch your back on deadlifts, which will prevent injury. Form and longevity are key.

Last Words:

Remember, this is just a general guide to starting, and an effort to explain why strength training can be beneficial for women. It is, by no means, an exhaustive end-all-be-all expert program for women. If you are looking for women that know their stuff and look great, you’d be pretty safe looking for the routines of most fitness competitors and bikini pros. However, your best bet would be checking out the blogs of women who do it. A few that I’d recommend are:

Tae Rae’s Fitness and Nutrition: http://tayraesfitnessandhealth.blogspot.com

Munchies, Muscles, and Mischief: http://fortheloveofcookies.wordpress.com/

Alli McKee Fitness, Exercise and Nutrition Blog: http://allimckee.com/

Gubernatrix: The Joy of Strength Training: http://gubernatrix.co.uk/

Cassandra Forsythe: Female Fitness and Nutrition Scientist:http://cassandraforsythe.com/

Ladies, I hope this helped. Get out there and get awesome!

Source: simplyshredded.com

Is It Worth It?

Something about the Olympics really strikes a chord with me. For a second, the world can quit all of its squabbles and come together to celebrate the hard work of athletes, no matter where they’re from. The athletes themselves, all sharing pre-competition jitters and joy in being there, aren’t begrudging any country. It’s a beautiful thing. The most inspiring part is watching the parade. Almost every competitor is holding a camera, grinning like its going out of style, looking like the happiest person in the world. It seems that even if they don’t win, just getting there is almost enough. The hours of training, the morning workouts, the parties skipped, the indulgences withheld all for this moment. The next three weeks are the accumulation of the past four years of training for these men and women.

Four years? Have you ever done something consistently, day after day, for four years? College, you say? Well yes, if you didn’t take any summers or winters off. This kind of work is almost inhuman. That is why we need to recognize it, admire it, and aspire to do it ourselves. You know people like this. I’m sure you went to school with someone who would never be able to go out because he had to train in the morning, or someone who brought their special food with them no matter where they went, intent on getting their nutrition in. They played it off like it was no big deal, but inside of them, they were missing what many would call “a normal life”. But they didn’t want a normal life. They wanted something more. They knew what they wanted, and they went for it, they worked, and worked, and worked some more. None of these Olympians got there by accident. They gave their lives to these games. The next time you regret not being an Olympian athlete, think to your self: do I really want it as bad as they do? Have I trained as much as I can? Have I done everything physically possible to be there? I didn’t think so. We underestimate our true potential. Lets stop and start achieving greatness.

Of course, not everyone can win. There are only so many medals to give out, and most of these amazing people will be going home empty-handed. Yes, they didn’t win, but did they really lose? They got to represent their country in a competition against the best athletes in the world, the fastest runners, the quickest swimmers, the strongest weightlifters that have ever lived. They got to live in the Olympic village surrounded by people that understand them, people that take their training as seriously as life itself. That sounds like an experience worth doing, medal or not.

Even if you aren’t an Olympic athlete, this applies to just about everything in life. don’t sell yourself short. Stop putting things off and do what you know you can if you really try.

Yes, there will be pain. Your body, determined to find the easiest way to do things, to conserve as much energy and brain power as possible, will be kicking and screaming the entire time. Your friends, wanting you to spend more time with them, will be jealous of you taking care of yourself first. If they are true friends, they’ll understand that sometimes you’ve just got to do your own thing. In the end, you’ll be able to look back at your life and be proud of the work you’ve done, and know that you worked hard, and it paid off.

Is it worth it? You bet it is.