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  • Killer Abs! Old School Style

    Killer Abs! Old School Style

    Title: Killer Abs! Old School Style

    By  Line: Tom Venuto

    Website: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word Count: 3818

    I have a confession to make. This might shock you. Are you ready? Don’t hate me. Okay, here it is:

    I don’t train my abs very much. Once a week for about 15 – 20 minutes. That’s it. Seriously – no kidding. I work my abs like any other small body part, maybe even less.

    Now, you’re probably wondering, how can I possibly get “Killer Abs” with only one ab workout a week?

    Well, if you already own my Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) fat burning system, or even if you’ve simply followed my articles and newsletters closely for a while, you already know the answer…

    LESSON #1 – Get rid of the fat or you’ll never see your abs, no matter how often you train, no matter how many reps you do or no matter what exercises you do

    LISTEN TO ME: AB TRAINING DOES NOT BURN FAT OFF YOUR STOMACH!

    This is probably the biggest misconception that people have about exercise today and I don’t think the general public is EVER going to get it. The myth that ab training burns fat off your abs is so pervasive that I suspect it will never die and simply continue to be passed down from generation to generation.

    The truth is, getting six-pack “killer” abs has almost nothing to do with training. It has everything to do with low body fat.

    Ironically, I believe the abdominal muscles are quite easy to develop; much, much easier than building an 18 inch muscular arm, a 315 pound bench, a 400 pound squat, or a wide, V-shaped back, for example.

    Some people might argue that I was just blessed with good genetics in the ab department, which may be true, but based on my experience with others who have less favorable genetics, I still believe that developing the abdominal muscles is easy. The hardest part is getting your body fat low enough for your abs to show.

    Most people grossly over train their abs. Training your abs daily or even every other day for hundreds or thousands of reps is totally unnecessary and a complete waste of time. Even  before competitions I only train abs twice a week!

    AB EXERCISES DON’T BURN FAT!!!

    You lose fat with nutrition and cardio. If you want to see your abs, tighten up your diet and do more cardio! The bottom line is, if your abs are covered with a layer of fat, you won’t be able to see them, no matter how much ab exercise you do! If you need help with a fat loss nutrition plan, check out my BFFM fat burning system

    LESSON #2 – The same old basic ab exercises that have been around for years, STILL work – and that means CRUNCHES!

    “Core training” and “functional training” are the “IN” things today. Devices and modalities such a stability balls, medicine balls, core balls, ab wheels, kettlebells, functional exercises, and so on, are all valuable tools, but they also represent what is trendy and fashionable in fitness training today.

    “Core” and “functional training” come largely from the sports world, and if you’re a competitive athlete, martial artist, golfer, tennis player, or you play any sport recreationally, this type of training is worth looking into.

    Very recently, a well-known ab training “guru” wrote in one of his books that “Crunches are worthless.” Funny how things change. It wasn’t so long ago that powerlifter and exercise physiologist Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield wrote, and I quote, “Crunches are the Cadillac of abdominal exercises.” (I would have said, “Mercedes of adbominal exercises” but oh well, that’s Fred).

    So what’s the deal? Should you crunch or should you ditch this “old” exercise in favor of all the “new stuff?”

    The truth is, there’s a happy medium! Crunches are not “worthless,” they’re simply over-used. You can and should incorporate a wide variety of crunch variations into your program, but also be sure to include some “functional” work which will help develop your core musculature and allow you to strengthen and develop your abs through every plane of motion.

    However, for pure “cosmetic” ab development, there’s nothing new under the sun. The “old school” methods are as valid as ever. And that starts with crunching exercises. Why? Because a primary function of the abs is to flex the spine and shorten the distance between the sternum and pelvis – which is exactly what crunching exercises do.

    Despite all the new and trendy ab workouts and equipment being promoted these days, the good old crunch is the oldie but goodie I always come back to time and time again. I’ve used crunches and their many variations in almost all my training routines for years.

    The best Crunch variations (upper abs) 1. Feet on floor reach through crunch 2. Feet on floor, hands crossed over chest crunch 3. Feet on floor hands behind head crunch 4. Feet on bench hands behind head crunch 5. Feet in air hands behind head crunch 6. Feet in air, hands behind head, pull in knees, touch elbows 7. Weight on chest crunch 8. Weight behind head crunch (caution – can strain neck) 9. Weight held at arms length above chest crunch 10. Stability ball crunch, bodyweight 11. Stability ball crunch, with resistance 12. Weighted supine crunch machine 13. Bicycle crunch 14. Twisting elbow to knee crunch

    LESSON #3 – Crunch with cables too.

    Bodyweight crunches performed off the floor are good. Cable crunches might be even better. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve seen more than one out of fifty people perform the exercise properly.

    Cable crunches can be performed seated, standing or kneeling. My favorite for bodybuilders and the “six pack abs look” is kneeling cable crunch. Performed properly, this is an AB-solutely KILLER exercise!

    KNEELING CABLE CRUNCH

    Most people perform the cable crunch like they were bowing. They bend only at the hips brining the elbows straight down to the floor, while the entire spinal column stays in a straight line. This does not cause the abs to contract dynamically through their full range of motion, it only gives you an isometric contraction of the abs, while bringing the hip flexors strongly into play.

    Proper form on the kneeling cable crunch is a curling motion, almost like a carpet being rolled up. Another way I like teach this exercise is to have a trainee visualize that a log is in front of them about a foot off the floor, and ask them to imagine they are wrapping their torso around the log, rounding the back over and curling the spine in a circular range of motion, curling the elbows over and around the log and back in towards the knees.

    Also, some people perform this facing away from the weight stack, which is one acceptable variation. I prefer facing towards the weight stack and holding a rope with my hands pressed against my forehead or top of my head

    Master the proper form on this exercise and you’ll see your abs start coming into focus at an alarming rate.

    LESSON #4 – After you’ve developed a substantial level of ab strength, learn how to do this advanced killer ab exercise: Hanging leg raises from the chin up bar

    If there’s any “secret weapon” in my ab training arsenal– the one exercise I’ve ALWAYS turned to when I wanted major results is the hanging leg raise, and its “younger brother,” the hanging knee up. These can be performed hanging by your hands from a chin up bar, although it’s much easier with “ab slings” because grip strength is no longer the limiting factor.

    I remember many years ago when Bill Phillips once made fun of this exercise in his magazine. He showed a picture of his Brother Shawn swinging precariously from the ab slings in a mocking fashion. I’m not sure why he blasted this movement, and Shawn certainly has a six-pack rack with the best of them. But personally, I think the hanging leg raise and knee up are two of the best ab exercises in existence.

    I think the problem is that this exercise is so difficult that most people can’t do them properly. Usually the first time you attempt a hanging leg raise from the chin up bar (with no back support behind you), you swing uncontrollably from front to back. So most people try these once or twice and then give up. Like anything else, practice makes perfect. Hanging leg raises are a very advanced and very difficult movement. Don’t expect to do them like a pro on your first try – and don’t even try them if you’re a beginner.

    If you’re a beginner, the best way to develop the strength necessary to do these properly is to start on the support leg raise (also known as the “Captain’s Chair”). That’s the piece of equipment found in almost every gym that has the pad for your forearms and elbows to support your body weight and a back support behind you. Start with support knee ups, then progress into support leg raises with the legs nearly straight. It’s important to use a full range of motion on this exercise and get your knees high up in front of the chest because the lower portion of the range of motion is largely initiated by the hip flexors.

    Once you’ve mastered the support leg raise, then you can move on to the hanging knee up and ultimately to the hanging straight leg raise. When you master the hanging leg raise, there’s an even higher level: You can begin to superset from the hanging leg raise (until fatigue) into the hanging knee up. Once you’ve reached the point where you can perform three supersets of 15 to 25 reps of hanging leg raises to hanging knee ups with STRICT form, I guarantee you will have amazing abdominal development (provided of course, that your body fat is low enough).

    SIX PACK ABS! LESSON #5 – Yes, you can train your lower abs

    One of the biggest controversies in ab training is the question of whether you can “isolate” your upper and lower abs. There are experts who swear you can, and experts who swear you can’t. If someone wants to get technical and split hairs, then it’s true – you CAN’T isolate lower and upper abs. The word “isolation” is somewhat of a misnomer because muscles work in conjunction with other muscles at all times.

    For example, a bench press is often called a “compound” exercise because the pecs are heavily assisted by the triceps and deltoids, while a dumbbell flye is usually referred to as an “isolation exercise” because it “isolates” the pecs more. However, the pectorals do not and cannot work in complete isolation from the triceps and deltoids; there is simply a smaller degree of involvement from the assisting muscles in the flye exercise. Therefore, the flye is an “isolation” exercise, relatively speaking, but not literally speaking.

    The same is true of the abs. You can’t completely isolate the lower from the upper abs or the abs from the obliques, but you CAN put greater emphasis on the lower or upper abs depending on the exercise you select.

    The abdominals are a unique muscle. They are not a single long muscle belly like the biceps, which has continuous fibers running the entire length from origin to insertion. The ab muscles have a tendinous band in between each section. This is what gives the abs their segmented, “six pack” appearance.

    Each segment of the abs flexes a portion of the lumbar spine and or pelvis. The lower abs are the part responsible for the flexion of the lower lumbar vertebrae and backward rotation of the pelvis. The upper abs are responsible for the flexion of the upper part of the lumbar spine.

    The practical application of this information is simple: Exercises that draw the lower body towards the upper body, such as reverse crunches, hip lifts, and leg raises, emphasize the lower abs. Exercises that draw the upper body towards the lower body, such as crunches, emphasize the upper abs (but neither completely isolates one or the other).

    One last tip: Because most lower ab exercises require more coordination and stability (they’re harder), do your lower abs first most of the time (especially if you’re using hanging straight leg raises – doing them last is extremely difficult).

    The best lower ab exercises 1. Support knee ups 2. Support leg raise 3. Hanging knee up 4. Hanging leg raise 5. Reverse crunch 6. Incline reverse crunch 7. Stability ball reverse crunch 8. Reverse crunch with medicine ball behind or between knees 9. Hip lift (“toes to sky”) 10. Bent knee leg raise/hip lift combo 11. Incline hip lift

    LESSON #6 – Avoid weighted side bends, which thicken the waist. Instead, opt for body weight elbow to knee twisting crunches, twisting hanging knee ups and side crunches to develop your obliques

    Which would you rather have: (A) a tiny waist that narrows down from broad shoulders and V-tapered back or (B) A muscular, but thick, wide and blocky waist.

    Yeah – I picked “A” too. So do most other people. However, not a day goes by in the gym when I don’t see people doing side bends with heavy dumbbells. I could NEVER understand why people would ever want to do these. I suppose, once again, people mistakenly think they’re burning fat with this exercise.

    The way to develop a beautiful and symmetrical physique is to create an illusion: Broad shoulders and a V-shaped torso must flow down into a tiny waist. You want to increase the size of your lats and deltoids (yes that includes you ladies too), while decreasing the size of your waist. Anything that makes your waist bigger will destroy your shape. Weighted side bends can make your waist thicker and wider by developing the muscles on the sides of the waist known as the obliques.

    There’s a big difference between sports training and bodybuilding (or “cosmetic”) training. Unless you’re an athlete with a need for a strong, thick trunk musculature, I’d suggest avoiding weighted side bends and all other weighted oblique exercises completely.

    Instead, simply do twisting elbow to knee crunches, twisting hanging knee ups, and side crunches only with your body weight. These exercises tend to hit the diagonal fibers of the obliques a little higher up on the waist, not the portion of the obliques on the lower, lateral area of the waist.

    LESSON #7 – Sit ups and leg raises are mediocre exercises that can aggravate low  back pain

    I’ve found that all varieties of sit-ups aggravate my lower back. Fifteen years ago I sustained a rupture of my fourth lumbar disc (L4) so severe that a neurosurgeon told me that I could forget about bodybuilding, I should never lift more than 40 pounds and I would eventually have to get surgery.

    Despite the surgeon’s grim prognosis, I rehabilitated my own back, but to this day, I still have a sensitive lumbar area. Doing the wrong abdominal exercises always brings back the pain almost instantly. I look at this as a positive thing because it has taught me a lot about what’s really happening during certain ab exercises. It has also prompted me to modify my routine to avoid certain troublesome exercises that pull on the lumbar spine more than develop the abs.

    Most people think sit-ups are primarily an ab exercise. They’re not. Sit-ups work the abs, but largely in an isometric fashion. Sit ups are an “integrated” exercise that work the abs and hip flexors, but the hip flexors do most of the work (especially the way most people perform them – quickly, with the feet anchored, and with extra weight).

    The psoas muscle, which is the primary hip flexor involved in the sit-up, originates on the lower lumbar vertebrae and inserts on the lesser trochanter of the femur (the top of your thighbone). Because the psoas is so heavily involved in the sit up and because the psoas is attached to your lumbar spine, sit ups cause a tremendous amount of “pull” to occur on your lower back.

    Visualize an imaginary hand reaching through your stomach, grabbing a hold of your spine, and pulling on it as if the hand were trying to yank your spine right out the front of your stomach. That’s essentially what’s happening when you do sit ups or roman chair sit-ups. Ditto for supine full range straight leg raises.

    You might say, “But I feel it working – I feel the burn!” Yes, but your abs aren’t contracting dynamically through their full range of motion, they’re contracting isometrically – and that causes the burn. It’s similar to when you hold a dumbbell out at arms length in front of you for as long as you can. Before long your shoulder is burning like crazy to the point where you cant even hold the dumbbell any longer. You get great burn from this, but that’s not how you’d train your shoulders is it?

    Sit-ups have made somewhat of a comeback lately, as the sports training and core training gurus claim that the hip flexors should be integrated into your ab routines. Well, unless you’re an athlete with a specific need for strong hip flexors, you have no history of lower back injury, and you already have a strong lower back and strong abdominals, forget about using sit-ups as your primary exercise. They’re a mediocre exercise at best, and for some people with injuries (even “old” injuries like I have), sit ups are contraindicated completely.

    Now… I know what you’re thinking… You know someone who does a zillion sit ups a day, they have great abs and have never had a back injury. Well, first of all, if the individual has strong abs and lower back and no pre-existing injuries, sit ups done with good form won’t necessarily cause an injury. Second, as I said earlier, developing the abdominal muscles is not difficult. To a certain degree, you can develop the ab muscles from almost any ab exercise – even nothing but sit-ups or isometric contractions from indirect ab work.

    When I was back in my “human guinea pig” days, I once went over a year without doing any ab exercises whatsoever. After I dieted down to about the mid single digits in body fat, there were my abs, looking almost as good (easily 80%) as they did the year before when I was training them twice a week. Knowing this, I’m often tempted not to train abs at all, except that I know strong abs are important for stability and injury prevention, not to mention that I want my abs looking 100% their best, not 80% or 90%.

    Just because someone has great abs doesn’t mean they’re using the best routine. Part of it may be genetics, but mostly it just means they have low body fat! Let me drive this point home AGAIN – Having “killer six-pack abs” has less to do with training than with low body fat. Everyone – including you – has a six pack! Most people just can’t see theirs yet.

    LESSON #8 – When you reach the advanced level, begin using supersets, tri-sets and giant sets (circuit training) in your ab workouts.

    One of the fastest ways I know of to develop the abs is to use supersets, tri sets, giant sets or circuit-style ab training, where you perform two or more exercises in a row without stopping. Coincidentally, this is also a great way to get your workouts finished faster. This is advanced form of training and you’ll need time to build up the strength and endurance necessary to use these techniques.

    A SUPERSET is where you perform two exercises in a row without stopping. For example, you might do a reverse crunch for 15-25 reps, then without any rest whatsoever, go directly into a regular crunch for 15-25 reps, for a grand total of 30 – 50 reps non stop. That’s one superset. You would then take your usual rest interval and repeat for the desired number of sets.

    TRI-SETS are the same as supersets, except you perform three exercises in a row without stopping. For example, you might do the reverse crunch, hip lift, and regular crunch all in a row with no rest between exercises. (ouch!)

    GIANT SETS are when you perform four or more exercises in a row without stopping. Some people call this circuit training, although performing “circuit training” for a single body part is generally referred to more often as “giant setting.”

    PART II: My Favorite “old-school” killer ab Routines

    The best way to finish up an ab article is with some routines, don’t you agree? All of the following routines are actual programs that I have used and/or are currently using now. I have tested them and they’re all KILLER!

    Basic straights sets routine 1. Reverse crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 2. Floor crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 3. Elbow to knee twisting crunch (or side crunch) 3 sets X 15-25 reps

    Advanced straight sets routine 1. Incline reverse crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 2. Kneeling cable crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps 3. Hanging twisting knee up 3 sets X 15-25 reps

    Heavy-light routine Select three ab exercises, all using resistance, for example: 1. Kneeling cable crunch 2. Weighted stability ball crunch 3. Supine Ab crunch machine

    Perform three sets of each exercise. Every other workout, change repetition range as follows:

    Workout A: (light) 15-25 reps, tempo 1011 Workout B (heavy) 8-12 reps, tempo 2022

    Tempo (seconds) 2 eccentric 0 pause in stretch pos 2 concentric 2 pause in contracted position

    Superset routine 1. Hanging knee up 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps superset to: 2. Kneeling cable crunch 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps

    3. Reverse Crunch 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps superset to: 4. Crunch with feet on bench 2-3 sets X 15-25 reps

     

    Tri-set routine 1. Hanging Leg raise 3 sets X 15-25 reps no rest, go directly to: 2. Hanging Knee Up 3 sets X 15-25 reps no rest, go directly to: 3. Weighted supine crunch 3 sets X 15-25 reps rest 60 seconds, repeat for a total of three tri-sets

    The Ultimate Killer Ab Routine (giant set) 1. Hanging straight leg raise 15-25 reps 2. Hanging knee ups 15-25 reps or as many as possible 3. Hip lift 15-25 reps 4. Reverse crunches 15-25 reps 5. Weighted supine crunch 15-25 reps 6. Bodyweight crunches 15-25 reps

    Each sequence of six exercises is one giant set. Rest 60 – 90 seconds after you finish exercise #6, then repeat for a total of three circuits. (if you can get through three circuits of this routine with strict form, including hitting 25 strict leg raises and 25 knee strict knee ups, you are in elite company) Good luck!

    Conclusion These eight principles and the sample routines are just the tip of the iceberg in my ab training arsenal but it’s all I have time for in this article. However, this should be more than enough ammo for you to begin an all out assault on your abs.

    If you employ these techniques in conjunction with a supportive fat loss nutrition and cardio program such as Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM), your abs will come in so fast it will almost scare you!

    Train hard and expect success,

    Tom Venuto, Fat Loss Coach Author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle www.BurnTheFat.com Founder and CEO of the Burn the Fat Inner Circle www.BurnTheFat.com/InnerCircle

  • Tom Venuto’s Holiday Fitness Challenge to You

    Tom Venuto’s Holiday Fitness Challenge to You

    Title: Tom Venuto’s Holiday Fitness Challenge to You

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com

    Word count: 2066 words

    Tom Venuto’s Holiday Fitness Challenge to You
    By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS www.BurnTheFat.com

    Every year as Thanksgiving gets closer, you’ve probably seen the depressing reports: “Most people gain between 5 and 10 pounds of body fat in the six weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”  I’m not sure if this worries you or not, but a lot of people are terrified about getting fatter in the next two months. They anticipate the workouts falling by the wayside and the holiday food calling out to them irresistibly, defeating even the strongest willpower. There’s good news and bad news about this.

    Good news: According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the average amount gained is much more modest – just over a pound.

    Bad news: A study by the National Institutes of Health found that this seasonal weight gain – even just a pound – is the kind of weight gain  that most people don’t lose when the holidays are over; it simply adds to the “weight creep” that “sneaks up” on you as you get older.

    People often wonder how it’s possible to wake up one morning at age 40 or 45 and  “suddenly” they’re 30 pounds fatter  – or more – than they were in college. Mystery solved.

    Of course, some people really do pack it on over the holidays, but whether its a pound or ten pounds, did you ever ask yourself why does holiday weight gain happen at all?

    In previous years, I’ve asked my readers and here are some common answers I was given:

    Holiday Excuse Survey Says…

    “I’m too busy over the holidays to work out as often as usual.”

    “I’m more stressed over the holidays, and the food is there, so I eat more.”

    “I have at least three parties to attend and then there’s Christmas and New Year’s, so it’s impossible to stay on a diet”

    “No one can tell me not to enjoy myself over the holidays so I’m just going to eat whatever I want.”

    These answers all have a few things in common:

    “Either/Or” Thinking and “Reverse Goal Setting” Exposed

    First, they assume that you can EITHER get in better shape OR enjoy yourself, but not both. Stated in reverse: You can either deprive yourself of holiday enjoyments or gain weight, but it has to be one or the other. The truth is, “either/or thinking” is neurotic thinking and a great killer of fitness programs.

    Second, these are all excuses or rationalizations. “I’m too busy” for example, is always an excuse, because I have never known someone who was too busy to make time for his her highest life priorities. We all have the same amount of time – 24 hours a day – the real problem is, most people don’t make exercise and healthy eating a priority.  And remember, words mean little. Actions reveal a person’s true priorities.

    Third, none of these are the real reasons most people gain weight over the holidays to begin with. The real reason is because an intention was never set for the opposite: To get in better shape over the holidays.

    Most people set a “goal” to get in worse shape over the holidays. It’s not consciously set, of course, as few people would intentionally set out to get fatter. They simply do it by default. In their minds, they accept that it must be just about impossible to stay in shape with everything going on over the holiday season, so why bother?

    Rationing Lies For Holiday Failure

    Once the decision has been made, then the rationalizing continues:

    “Why should I deprive myself?” “Family is more important” “Worrying about diet and exercise during the holidays is neurotic” “I don’t care if I gain a few pounds, I’m going to enjoy myself anyway” “It’s only these two or three weeks that I let myself go wild” “I’ll start the first week in January and lose the weight then.”

    As a result of this “negative goal-setting,” they expect to work out less, eat more and gain a few pounds, and they don’t seem to even consider alternatives.

    But what would happen if you…

    SET A GOAL TO GET IN BETTER shape over the holidays?

    What would happen if you decided that it was not an all or nothing proposition and that you could enjoy the holidays and all it has to offer and get in better shape at the same time?

    And what if you decided that your health and your body were the highest priorities in your life, because you realized that can’t enjoy anything else in life, including family or holidays, if you don’t have your health?

    Here’s what would happen: You’d get in better shape!

    I’m not all that different from you just because I’m a bodybuilder and fitness professional. I have many of the same problems, concerns and struggles as you do. Although today I always get in better shape between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, that’s a result of a conscious choice, a close examination of my old belief systems and a lot of action. For me, it all started about eight years ago.

    For most of my adult life, I wasn’t much of a traveler and I didn’t enjoy flying or staying in hotels. For one thing, I had so many business commitments in the East Coast health club business, that I seldom left town for long, as I had to “tend to the stores.” But I also had a belief that if I traveled, my workouts and nutrition would suffer. After all, “it would be hard to stick with my usual bodybuilding diet, and I wouldn’t have access to my usual gyms”, I told myself. For these reasons, I never did much travel..

    Then I was forced to take some trips for business reasons. Predictably enough, my nutrition and workouts suffered while I was spending time in airplanes and in hotels. With my experience having confirmed my beliefs, I re-affirmed to myself, “See, travelling is nothing but a pain. You just can’t stay on a diet and training program when you’re out of town.”

    After several more trips, I noticed that something very negative happened: I surrendered. I had resigned myself to “not bother” while I was on the road. I let my expectations create my reality.

    But I didn’t let it go on for long. As soon as I became aware of what was happening, I decided that I wouldn’t tolerate it, so I challenged myself and my previous limiting beliefs. I asked myself, “Why the heck not? Why let myself backslide? Why even settle for maintaining? Why not challenge myself to improve while I’m traveling?” The answer was: There was no good reason, there were only excuses.

    From that day forward, I set a challenge for myself…

    To come back from every trip or vacation in better shape than when I left.

    Of course there were exceptions, as when I went on a vacation for total R & R. But I never let travel get in my way again. I prepared food that I would eat on the planes so airline food was never an excuse… I usually chose hotels that had kitchens, so I could cook my own food. I went food shopping immediately after check-in. I wrote my training schedule and scouted gyms in advance… And I actually found myself training harder than usual.

    No matter where I was training – it could even be some “dungeon” of a gym in the middle of nowhere – it didn’t matter because my mind was focused on improving and looking better when I came home than when I left. I had a goal to motivate me!

    What do you think happened? It’s not hard to guess: I always came home in better shape than when I left.

    Since then, my “travel challenge” has become somewhat of a ritual in my life. When I’m away from my “home-base” it becomes a “fitness road trip.” I search the Internet or yellow pages or ask locals to help me find the most hard-core gym nearby wherever I will be staying (Gold’s Gym works for me!) When I get there, I train every bit as hard as if I had a competition just weeks away. I look forward to it now. In fact, this is what led me to my “holiday fitness challenge” idea.

    Like many people, I travel over the holidays, so I’m automatically in “travel challenge” mode at thanksgiving, Christmastime and New Year’s. But with the additional temptations and busyness that the holidays bring on top of the usual travel stresses, I saw fit to declare a new challenge: “The Holiday Challenge.” The difference was that for my “holiday challenge,” I pledged to not only to return home in better shape than when I left, but to enjoy the holidays to the fullest at the same time.

    can you eat this

    People who think I deprive myself to look the way I do would be shocked: I eat like a KING over the holidays including Pumpkin (or apple) Pie at Thanksgiving and OF COURSE my mom’s famous red and green Jell-O Christmas cake. Then on New Year’s I’m usually toasting champagne and having a blast with friends or family….

    The difference is, I don’t eat like that very often.

    Every other meal stays right on schedule and I work out hard and consistently over the holidays; I don’t let everything fall apart just because ‘tis the season.’

    The idea that you can EITHER enjoy the holidays OR stay in shape – but not both – is wrong, it’s damaging and it’s  limiting.

    Life is not an either or proposition; it’s a matter of balance.

    Success does not mean going to extremes. Success can be a simple matter of re-examining your beliefs, rearranging your priorities, setting goals, changing the questions you ask yourself and re-evaluating your expectations.

    Your expectations will become your reality. What are you expecting? Are you expecting success? Are you expecting to be in better shape after holiday parties, celebrations, banquets, dinners, and desserts? If not, then why not? What’s preventing you from enjoying all of the above and still getting in better shape? Do you have a limiting belief which dictates that it’s one or the other? Could it be that you never set a goal, intention or expectation to do it? Could it be that you’re rationalizing or making excuses? If so, then I challenge you to change it this year.

    As of this writing, there are less than two months until the end of the year. Why not see how much you can improve your physique over the holidays, without depriving yourself of any holiday enjoyments or festivities? Just step up your expectations. Step up your standards. Step up your nutrition. Step up your training. Step up your action. Step up and accept the “Burn The Fat holiday fitness challengeand see what happens!

    That’s right… The First Annual Burn The Fat Holiday Fitness challenge contest is open from Wednesday November 18th to Wednesday November 25th.

    Over the course of a “50-Day Burn” which spans all three major holidays – Thanksgiving (US), Christmas and New Year’s – you’ll have the motivation, the accountability and structured program to end the year strong, start the new year on the foot and possibly get in the best shape of your life.

    Even better, you’ll be able to eat delicious Holiday Food and enjoy yourself to the fullest at the same time because this is a lifestyle program which allows your favorite foods in moderation and balance.

    And the best part of all: I’m sending the winners of the contest to Hawaii islands to show off their new bodies on the beach in 2013!

    Taking the Burn The Fat Challenge is simple. You can enter the contest two ways:

    (1) Purchase the Burn The Fat e-book from www.BurnTheFat.com! or

    (2) Join the Burn The Fat Inner Circle fitness support community (“contest central”) at http://www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com.

    You’ll be automatically enrolled with either purchase.

    Train hard and expect success!

    -Tom Venuto, Author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle Founder/CEO, Burn The Fat Inner Circle

    About the author:
    Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness

    writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The

    Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without

    drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best

    bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of

    stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:

    www.BurnTheFat.com

  • How To Go From Calorie Clueless To Calorie Competent

    How To Go From Calorie Clueless To Calorie Competent

    Title: How To Go From Calorie Clueless To Calorie Competent

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 856 words

    How To Go From Calorie Clueless To Calorie Competent By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com


    Why is it that any time you hear the words “calorie counting” or “food journaling”, people start running for the hills? If creating menus, counting calories and keeping a food journal are research-proven, effective tools for nutrition awareness, education, motivation and accountability (they are), then why is there so much resistance to it?

    One reason is because it’s perceived as work and hard work doesn’t sell! Another reason is that skeptics say, “What about intuitive eating?” “What about people who lose fat without counting calories?”

    Sure, you could choose not to count calories and eat what you “feel” your body is asking for, but if you do, that’s called guessing. If you guess correctly and eat the right amount, you lose weight. I would call that luck! Would you rather roll the nutritional dice or bet on a sure thing?

    Nutrition journaling and menu planning replace guesswork with precision.

    Perhaps even more important, they are also crucial parts of the learning process to raise nutritional awareness. There’s only ONE WAY to truly understand food and how it affects YOUR body: You have to go through all four stages of the learning process:

    Stage 1: Unconscious incompetence – you are eating the wrong foods in the wrong amounts and you’re not even aware of it. (You don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t know that you don’t know what you’re doing)

    Stage 2: Conscious incompetence – you are eating the wrong foods in the wrong amounts, but for some reason, you now become aware of it. This is often because of a “hitting bottom” experience or an “I’m not gonna live like this anymore” epiphany. (You don’t know what you’re doing and now you know that you don’t know what you’re doing!)

    Stage 3: Conscious competence – you educate yourself and begin to eat the right foods, but it takes a lot of thought and effort to eat the right things in the right amounts. (You know what you’re doing, but you have to think about it and work very hard to make it happen because you’re using willpower and still learning)

    Stage 4: Unconscious competence – you’ve made the conscious effort to eat the right foods in the right amounts and you’ve counted calories and kept a nutrition journal for long enough and with enough repetition that these behaviors become habits and a part of your lifestyle. (You know what you’re doing and you do it easily and automatically without having to think about it).

    I think the concept of intuitive eating has merit. If we listened to our body’s true signals, I believe that our appetite, our activity and our body weight would properly regulate themselves. The problem is, in our Western, technologically-advanced culture with an obesogenic environment, a sedentary lifestyle, social pressure and food cues tempting us at every turn, our intuitive bodily wisdom constantly gets short-circuited.

    In our modern society, being able to eat by instinct and successfully guesstimate your nutrition or trust your feelings of hunger and satiety are not things that come naturally or easily.

    The only sure-fire way to reach that hallowed place of unconscious competence where eating the right foods in the right amounts becomes automatic and you truly understand YOUR body is by going through the nutrition education process.

    Two simple ways to count calories and get this nutrition education you need are the meal plan method and the nutrition journal method.

    The Meal Plan method

    Using software or a spreadsheet, create a menu plan meal by meal, with calories, macronutrients and serving sizes calculated properly for your goals and your energy needs. You can create 2 or more menu plans if you want the variety. Then, follow your menu plan every day. You simply weigh and measure your food portions to make sure your actual intake matches your written plan. With this method, you really only need to “count calories” once when you create your menus. This is a method I use and recommend in my Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle program

    The Nutrition Journal (Food Diary) Method

    Another way to track your nutrition intake is to keep a nutrition journal or food diary, either on paper or with an electronic device, software or website. This is more like “calorie counting” in the traditional sense. Throughout the day, after each meal, you log in what you just ate, or at the end of the day, you log in all your food for the entire day. The former is the best option, since people seem to get really bad cases of “eating amnesia” if they wait too long before writing it down.

    I recommend counting calories and keeping a nutrition journal at least once in your life for at least 4-12 consecutive weeks or until you achieve unconscious competence. At that point, it becomes optional because habit and intuition take over.

    You can come back to your meal-planning and journaling any time in the future if you slip back or if you have a very important goal you want to work on. It’s a tool that will always be there for you if you need it.

    Tom Venuto, author of www.Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

    Founder & CEO of Burn the fat inner circle

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, freelance

    writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn

    The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The

    World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book)

    which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or

    supplements using secrets of the world’s best

    bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of

    stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:

    www.BurnTheFat.com or http://www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com

  • The 2 Pounds Per Week Rule and How to Burn Fat Faster

    The 2 Pounds Per Week Rule and How to Burn Fat Faster

    Title: The 2 Pounds Per Week Rule and How to Burn Fat Faster

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 1884 words

    The 2 Pounds Per Week Rule and How to Burn Fat Faster

    By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com

    Why do you always hear that 2 pounds per week is the maximum amount of fat you should safely lose? If you train really hard while watching calories closely shouldn’t you be able to lose more fat without losing muscle or damaging your health? What if you want to lose fat faster? How do you explain the fast weight losses on The Biggest Loser? These are all good questions that I’ve been asked many times. With the diet marketplace being flooded every day with rapid weight loss claims, these questions desperately need and deserve some honest answers. Want to know where that 2 pounds per week rule comes from and what it really takes to burn more than 2 pounds of fat per week? Read on.

    Why Only 2 Pounds Per Week?

    The truth is, two pounds is not the maximum amount you can safely lose in a week. That’s only a general recommendation and a good benchmark for setting weekly goals. It’s also sensible and realistic because it’s based on average or typical results.

    The actual amount of fat you can lose depends on many factors. For example, weight losses tend to be relative to body size. The more body fat you carry, the more likely you’ll be able to safely lose more than two pounds per week. Therefore, we could individualize our weekly guideline a bit by recommending a goal of 1-2 lbs of fat loss per week or up to 1% of your total weight. If you weighed 300 lbs, that would be 3 lbs per week.

    Body Weight Vs Body Composition

    Weight loss is somewhat meaningless unless you also talk about body composition; the fat to muscle ratio, as well as water weight. Ask any wrestler about fast weight loss and he’ll tell you things like, “I cut 10 lbs overnight to make a weight class. It was easy – I just sweated it off.”

    You’ve also probably seen people that went on some extreme induction program or a lemon juice and water fast for the first week and dropped an enormous amount of weight. But once again, you can bet that a lot of that weight was water and lean tissue and in both cases, you can bet that those people put the weight right back on.

    The main potential advantage of any type of induction period for rapid weight loss in the first week is that a large drop on the scale is a motivational boost for many people (even if it is mostly water weight).

    Why do you hear so many diet and fitness professionals insist on 2 lbs a week max? Where does that number come from? Well, aside from the fact that it’s a recommendation in government health guidelines and in position statements of most nutrition and exercise organizations, it’s just math. The math is based on what’s practical given the number of calories an average person burns in a day and how much food someone can reasonably cut in a day.

    How Do You Lose More Than 2 Pounds Per Week?

    Can you lose more than 2 lbs of pure fat in a week? Yes, although it’s easier in the beginning. It gets harder as your diet progresses. How do you do it? My rule is, extraordinary results require extraordinary efforts. An extraordinary effort means a particularly strict diet, as well as burning more calories through training because you can only cut your calories so far from food before you’re starving and suffering from severe hunger.

    Simply put, you need a bigger calorie deficit.

    If you have a 2500 calorie daily maintenance level, and you want to drop 3 lbs of fat per week withe diet alone, you’d need a huge daily deficit of 1500 calories, which would equate to eating 1000 calories per day. You would lose weight rapidly for as long as you could maintain that deficit (although it would slow down over time). Most people aren’t going to last long on so little food and they often end with a period of binge eating. It’s not practical (or fun) to cut calories so much and in some cases it could be unhealthy.

    The other alternative is to train for hours and hours a day, literally. People ask me all the time, “Tom, how is it possible for the Biggest Loser contestants to lose so much weight? Well first of all they’re not measuring body fat, only body weight. Then you have the high starting body weights and the large water weight loss in the beginning. After that, just do the math – they’re training hours a day so they’re creating a huge calorie deficit.

    But without that team of trainers, dieticians, teammates, a national audience and all that prize money, do you think they’d be motivated and accountable enough to do anywhere near that amount and intensity of exercise in the real world? Would it even be possible if they had a job and family? Not likely, is it? It’s not practical to do that much exercise, and it’s not practical to cut your calories below a 1000 a day and remain compliant. If you manage to achieve the latter, it’s very difficult not to rebound and regain the weight afterwards for a variety of physiological and psychological reasons.

    For Fast Fat Loss: Less Food Or Harder Training?

    Trainers are becoming more inventive these days in coming up with high intensity workouts that burn a large amount of calories and really give the metabolism a boost. This can help speed up the fat loss within a given amount of time. But as you begin to utilize higher intensity workouts, you have to start being on guard for overtraining or overuse injuries.That’s why strict nutrition with an aggressive calorie deficit is going to have to be a major part of any fast fat loss strategy. Unfortunately, very low calorie dieting has its own risks in the way of lean tissue loss, slower metabolism, extreme hunger, and greater chance of weight re-gain.

    My approach to long term weight control is to lose weight slowly and patiently and follow a nutrition plan that is well balanced between lean protein, healthy fats and natural carbs and doesn’t demonize any entire food group. To lose fat, you simply create a caloric deficit by burning more and eating less (keeping the nutrient density of those calories as high as possible, of course).

    But to achieve the extraordinary goals such as photo-shoot-ready, super-low body fat or simply faster than average fat loss, while minimizing the risks, I often turn to a stricter cyclical low carb diet for brief “peaking” programs. I explain this method in chapter 12 of my e-book Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (it’s my “phase III” or “competition” diet).

    The cyclical aspect of the diet means that after three to six days of an aggressive calorie deficit and strict diet, you take a high calorie / high carb day to re-feed the body and re-stimulate the metabolism. Essentially, this helps reduce the starvation signals your body is receiving. It’s also a psychological break from the deprivation which helps improve compliance and prevent relapse.

    The higher protein intake can help prevent lean tissue loss and curb the hunger. A high protein diet also helps by ramping up dietary thermogenesis. A high intake of greens, fibrous vegetables and low calorie fruits can help tip the energy balance equation in your favor as fibrous veggies are very low in calorie density and some of the calories in the fiber are not metabolizable. Healthy fats are added in adequate quantities, while the calorie-dense simple sugars and starchy carbs are kept to a minimum except on refeed days and after (or around) intense workouts.

    There’s No Magic, Just Math

    In my experience, a high protein, reduced carb approach in conjunction with weights and cardio can help maximize fat loss – both in terms of increasing speed of fat loss and particularly for getting rid of the last of the stubborn fat. It helps with appetite control too. But always bear in mind that the faster fat loss occurs primarily as a result of the larger calorie deficit (which is easily achieved with sugars and starches minimized), not some type of “low carb magic.” If your diet were high in natural carbs but you were able to diligently maintain the same large calorie deficit, the results would be similar.

    I’m seeing more and more advertisements that not only promise rapid weight loss, but go so far as saying that you’re doing it wrong if you’re losing “only” two pounds per week. “Why settle” for slow weight loss, they insist. Well, it’s certainly possible to lose more than two pounds per week, but it’s critically important to understand that there’s a world of difference between rapid weight loss and permanent fat loss.

    It’s also vital to know that there’s no magic in faster fat loss, just math. All the new-fangled dietary manipulations and high intensity training programs that really do help increase the speed of fat loss all come full circle to the calorie balance equation in the end, even if they claim their method works for other reasons and they don’t mention calories burned or consumed at all.

    Beware of The Quick Fix

    Faster fat loss IS possible. My question is, are you willing to tolerate the hunger, low calories and high intensity exercise for that kind of deficit? Do you have the work ethic? Do you have the supreme level of dietary restraint necessary to stop yourself from bingeing and putting the weight right back on when that aggressive diet is over? Or would you rather do it in a more moderate way where you’re not killing yourself, but instead are making slow and steady lifestyle changes and taking off 1-2 lbs of pure fat per week, while keeping all your hard-earned muscle?

    Remember, 1-2 pounds per week is 50-100 pounds in a year. Is that really so slow or is that an astounding transformation? You don’t gain 50-100 pounds over night, so why should anyone expect to take it off overnight? Personally, I think short-term thinking and the pursuit of quick fixes are the worst diseases of our generation.

    If you want to be one of those “results not typical” fat loss transformations, it can be done and it may be a perfectly appropriate short-term goal for the savvy and sophisticated fitness enthusiast. It’s your call. But when you set your goals, it might be wise to remember that old fable of the tortoise and the hare, and buyer beware if you go shopping for a fast weight loss program in today’s shady marketplace.

    Train hard and expect success,

    Tom Venuto Fat Loss Coach www.BurnTheFat.com

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent

    nutrition researcher, freelance writer, and author of the

    #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The

    Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best

    Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which

    teaches you how to get lean without drugs or

    supplements using secrets of the world’s best

    bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your

    metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com

     

  • An Insanely Effective Type of Interval Training

    An Insanely Effective Type of Interval Training

    Title: An Insanely Effective Type of Interval Training

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 1165 words

    An Insanely Effective Type of Interval Training By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com

    www.BurnTheFat.comsquare

    High intensity interval training can be done in a variety of different ways. Here’s a wickedly-effective type of interval training: it requires no machines or fancy equipment, you can do it outside in the sunshine and fresh air, it develops killer conditioning, carves out legs like a sprinter, and burns calories at an accelerated rate…

    In other articles about running/aerobics and high intensity interval training, as well as in my Fat loss books, I’ve written about how you can integrate both traditional steady state cardio as well as high intensity interval training into your training program for optimal body composition improvement, health and increased fitness – you don’t have to choose one form of cardio or the other. In fact, settling into dogmatic views about cardio will only limit you.

    Traditional steady state cardio is pretty much self-explanatory and intuitive. But many people are still confused about the best way to do interval training.

    An Insanely Effective Way To Do Interval Cardio

    I’m not sure if there is a single best way to do intervals because there are so many choices and everyone is different in their goals, interests and personal preferences, so “best” is a relative thing. But let me give you one of my personal favorites that is breathtakingly effective:

    Stair sprinting!

    Your typical interval workout in the gym might be on a stationary cycle, treadmill or stairclimber with short 30-60 second bursts of high speed and/or resistance, followed by a 60-120 second period of low intensity recovery. That’s usually a 1:1 or 1:2 work to recovery interval. You then rinse and repeat for the desired number of intervals, usually between 6 and 12.

    I sometimes have access to a great set of university stadium steps with a straight shot right up – 52 steps.

    Sprinting it takes about 10 seconds or so, walking down about 30 seconds. Those are short intervals with a 1:3 work to recovery interval ratio. That wasn’t by design, it just happens to be how long it takes to run up and walk down that particular flight of stairs, but co-incidentally, that fits within common recommendations for short sprint-style intervals.

    I make sure I’m warmed up first, I usually start with a couple flights up at a slow jog then a run, before sprinting, usually 10-12 rounds.

    Even if you jog/run instead of sprint, (or pause briefly at the bottom of the stairs), when you do the math, you can figure that this usually doesn’t take more than 10-12 minutes.

    Why do I like stadium step sprinting?

    1. Stair sprinting is a time saver. Like other forms of interval training, it’s entirely possible to get as much if not more cardiovascular conditioning in 10-15 minutes than you’d get from a much longer session of slower cardio (depending on the intensity and effort levels).

    2. Stair sprinting is engaging. Many people get bored doing long slow to medium intensity cardio sessions. This is a great way to break up the monotony of traditional cardio workouts. Even though it’s tough, it’s actually kind of fun.

    3. Stair sprinting is incredible for leg development. As a bodybuilder, I like to look at all types of training not only in terms of conditioning, fat loss and health, but also whether they will add or detract from the physique. I find that brief but intense stair workouts are amazing for leg development – quads, hamstrings, glutes and even your calves. In fact, I started training on the stairs more than 20 years ago, and I always considered it as much if not more of a leg workout than anything else.

    4. Stair sprinting can be done outside. If you have access to stadium steps, as opposed to just a stairwell, you can enjoy the sun and fresh air.

    How to integrate stair running into your training program

    If you’re an overachiever type, you might be tempted to do these sprint workouts in addition to your current strength training and cardio workload.

    However, keep in mind that intensity and duration are inversely proportional. When you do high intensity cardio or all out sprints, you are condensing more work into less time. That means the best part is, you can do a brief but intense stair workout instead of one of your long cardio sessions rather than in addition to them.

    Recommendation: Start with one session per week, then progress to two if you choose. You can do traditional cardio the other days of the week if you want or need additional calorie-burning. Lower intensity cardio in between weight training and interval workouts can also serve as active recovery.

    Not everyone has access to a full flight of stadium steps, as you might find at a local University. Running flights of stairs in a high rise is another effective and no-cost way to train on stairs. Although you can’t truly sprint with twists and turns on each floor, you can jog/run.

    No stairs? Hills will get the job done too and they may provide you with more flexibility in the length/duration of your intervals. I’ve found some big hills at just the right grade of incline that I can do 30-45 second runs up, with about 90-120 seconds walk down. Grassy hills are nice, when available, as they spare you some of the impact from running on the concrete.

    Sprinting up stairs is not for everyone. If you have a history of health problems or orthopedic issues, check with your doctor before doing any kind of high intensity training and of course, don’t train through the pain of injury. If you are significantly overweight, it may be a challenge just to walk up stairs, let alone run up, not to mention it might create undue stress on your joints. But as you get lighter and fitter, it’s a challenge you might slowly work toward.

    Be sure to build up gradually and adjust the workout based on your current health and fitness level. You could start with as few as 4-6 rounds and build up from there. You can also start with jogging up the stairs, then progress to running, then move to sprints. Be sure you are fully prepared and warmed up before attempting all out sprints as sprinting when unprepared is a notorious source of hamstring pulls.

    Some coaches believe that running uphill is safer than sprinting flat surfaces. Writing for Staley Training.com, Coach Steven Morris says, “Another great reason to hill sprint: even an athlete with horrendous running form will be safe running hills. This is simply because the hill does NOT allow the athlete to over-stride nor does it allow them to reach top speed, both major factors in hamstring injuries.”

    Stair sprinting is a perfect complement to the cardio portion in my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program. If you’re healthy and already fit, try this advanced interval workout and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!

    Train hard and expect success!

    Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Founder & CEO of Burn The Fat Inner Circle Burn the fat inner circle

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and

    Fitness Models. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder

    and fat loss expert who achieved an astonishing 3.7%

    body fat level without drugs or supplements. Discover

    how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn

    body fat, find out which foods burn fat and which foods

    turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss report and mini course

    by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

  • Once an Endomorph Always an Endomorph? (Can Your Body Type Change?)

    Once an Endomorph Always an Endomorph? (Can Your Body Type Change?)

    Title: Once an Endomorph Always an Endomorph? (Can Your Body Type Change?)

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 1299

    Once an Endomorph Always an Endomorph? (Can Your Body Type Change?) By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com!

     

     Are you an ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph body type? To maximize your results, regardless of whether your goal is fat loss or muscle gain, it’s helpful to know your body type and adjust your approach according to your type. But a big question that almost no one has ever answered is, “Does your body type change over time?” If so, then what? Do you have to totally change your nutrition and training again? And if your body type doesn’t change, does this mean you are stuck being a fat endomorph for the rest of your life, doomed because of genetics? Read on to find out.

    Somatotype is a 3-part, 7-point body type rating scale developed by a guy named Sheldon back around 1940 or so. Ectomorphs are the linear, bony, lean types, mesomorphs are the naturally muscular body types (yeah, the ones we hate!), and endormorphs are the ones with the round body shapes and the genetic tendency toward storing more body fat.

    Generally, you have a combination body type, which is why you are scored with 3 numbers (Arnold Schwarzenneger in his bodybuilding prime: think pure mesomorph with the highest score of 7).

    The question is, Does somatotype change? this is a very interesting question that has been asked and debated before both by the layperson (often bodybuilding and fitness enthusiasts) and by scientists.

    Two of those scientists were JE Lindsay Carter, a physical education professor from San Diego State University and Barbara Heath, and Anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania.

    There was initially a lot of debate and antagonism provoked by the classic Sheldon system of classifying human body types (“somatotyping”), because initially, Sheldon was very rigid in his insistence that body types were permanent and did not change.

    However, Heath and Carter proposed that it was plain to see that body types DID change due to normal growth, aging, physical training and dietary deprivation (they cited the Minnesota starvation study, where subjects started out looking somewhat mesomorphic and ended up looking like ectomorphs (like POW camp victims, literally).

    Heath and Carter weren’t trying to dismiss somatotpying, they supported it and wanted to validate it.

    However, they wanted to address the shortcomings of the somatotyping method and one of those was the fact that the Sheldon system didn’t accommodate for changes in physique as a result of training and nutrition.

    In their voluminous 1990 textbook on the subject, Heath and Carter define somatotype as:

    “A quantitative description of the present shape and composition of the human body. It is expressed in a 3 number rating, representing three components of physique: (1) endomorphy, (2) mesomorphy and (3) ectomorphy. The somatotype can be used to record changes in physique and to estimate gross biological differences and similarities among human beings. This method of somatotyping is sensitive to changes in physique over time and is used for rating both sexes at all ages.”
    john_bartlett.jpg
    Look at a guy like John Bartlett for example, one of our inner circle contributing authors and an outstanding natural competitive bodybuilder. When you see him today and you ask what is his body type, you would say, “MESOMORPH all the way!”

    That’s because today he is ripped and muscular

    But if you look at his before picture and ask “what is this guy’s body type” you would say, “Endomorph” all the way or at least “endo-mesomorph” because he did have a solid and stocky build before, but also a high body fat percentage.

    Well, which is it? Or did his body type change? Clearly, John gained a lot of muscle and lost a lot of fat and looks totally different today. So could we say his body type changed? If we go by current outward appearance, then yes, absolutely.

    But does this mean his body type really changed or did he overcome an inherent endomorph body type to achieve where he is now?

    Or, to play devil’s advocate here, was he always a mesomorph inherently and he just really let himself go for a while and he was just returning to his normal body type of mesomorph?

    These are interesting questions. The Heath-Carter method simply includes body composition as part of the rating scale of a person’s body type and says that you can rate someone based on how they look now. That includes bone structure (which changes little or not at all after adulthood) AND body composition (which can change throughout life). So you could say John was an Endomorph and is now a Mesomorph. Predominantly Mesomorph is his present classification.

    However, at the same time, we could say that a person DOES have an inherent body type or set point – a physique that they will gravitate towards in the absence of circumstances or concerted efforts to change it.

    I addressed this issue of changing body types versus an inherent (or “permanent” body type) in www.BurnTheFat.com (BFFM). The way I explained it is that I said your true body type is what you will gravitate to naturally when you are not in a highly trained state. It’s your inherent tendency. In that respect, you could say somatotype does not change, while body composition does.

    In chapter 5 of BFFM, I said there were three additional ways to know your inherent body type beyond Sheldon’s scale, which takes into account changes in physique due to training and nutrition:

    1. How you looked before you took up training (your “natural” body shape)
    2. How you respond to training and nutrition (ease of muscle gain or fat loss)
    3. How you respond to de-training (how well you retain lean mass and low body fat or how quickly you lose lean mass and gain fat on cessation of training)

    If you wanted to make this even MORE complex, we could look at somatotyping by considering not just the outward bone structure and body composition of an individual, but also the metabolic (interior) characteristics.

    My “Burn The Fat” system of body typing is like a combination of:

    (1) Metabolic typing (internal metabolic characteristics like carb tolerance)
    (2) Somatotyping (external body shape – linearity or roundness, fatness or leanness)
    (3) Miscellaneous other genetic factors.

    That would be a pretty good three-part body typing system that covers the concerns about changing body types, individual metabolic types (“carb intolerant types” or protein types, etc), and genetics (which is especially relevant since obesity genes have been identified fairly recently).

    I hear criticisms of the somatotyping system all the time, where people say it is not useful. I disagree. Yes, it’s perhaps too crude of a system to base your entire training and nutrition plan upon, but I believe it’s very helpful as a general tool to “KNOW THYSELF”.

    In other words, if you are inherently an endomorph and you KNOW IT, then you know darn well what happens when you don’t do any cardio. You know what happens when you cheat four or five times in a week. You know what happens when you slack off. You gravitate towards gaining fat, because that is your body type’s tendency! So you can adjust your training, nutrition and lifestyle accordingly.

    If you are an ectomorph, then you know what happens when you skip meals… you don’t gain any muscle! You know what happens when you do too much cardio… you don’t gain any muscle, or you lose some!, etc. etc.

    And if you’re a mesomorph…. did I mention…. we hate you!

    If you’d like to learn more, chapter 5 in www.BurnTheFat.comis about body typing. It’s full of some really valuable and motivating lessons about knowing yourself, your body and your genetics and understanding the importance of taking personal responsibility, regardless of your hereditary predispositions. If you already have the book, it’s worth re-reading periodically.

    Tom Venuto, author of
    Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
    www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Founder & CEO of
    Burn The Fat Inner Circle
    Burn the fat inner circle

    P.S. Just kidding mesomorphs… we don’t really hate you, we just envy you!

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, freelance

    writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn

    The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The

    World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book)

    which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or

    supplements using secrets of the world’s best

    bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of

    stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com! or Burn the fat inner circle

  • New HIIT Research: A Practical Model For High Intensity Interval Training

    New HIIT Research: A Practical Model For High Intensity Interval Training

    Title: New HIIT Research: A Practical Model For High Intensity Interval Training

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 766 words

    New HIIT Research: A Practical Model For High Intensity Interval Training By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com!

    High intensity interval training, also known as HIIT, has become immensely popular in the last decade. HIIT involves alternating brief bursts of very high intensity exercise (work intervals) with brief segments of lower intensity exercise (recovery intervals). One problem with some types of HIIT is that they call for such high intensity bursts – literally all out sprints – that they’re not practical for everyone, and possibly not even safe for older or overweight individuals. A recent study out of McMaster University has tested a protocol for HIIT that produces impressive results in a short period of time without the need for “all-out” sprints…

    Many of the previous studies on HIIT used ALL-OUT intervals on a specialized cycle ergometer, pedaling against a high resistance.

    This type of training takes a high level of commitment and motivation and can result in feelings of severe discomfort and even nausea.

    One of my colleagues mentioned in our Burn the Fat Forums that he remembers exercise physiology class in college where they did all out cycle ergometer interval sprint testing and nearly everyone either puked or passed out.

    The Tabata protocol for example, is a brief but brutal 4 minute HIIT workout often spoken of by trainers and trainees alike with both appreciation and dread. It’s no walk in the park.

    The truth is, some HIIT protocols which have been tested in the lab to produce big improvements in cardiovascular function and conditioning in a short period of time, may not be practical or safe, especially for beginners, obese or older adults.

    In this new study out of McMaster University, a HIIT protocol that was more practical and attainable for the general population was tested to see how the results would compare to the more “brutal” very short, but extremely intense types of HIIT.

    Here’s what the new HIIT protocol looked like:

    Study duration: 2 weeks Frequency: 3 sessions per week (mon, wed, fri) Work intervals: 60 seconds @ constant load Intensity Work intervals: “high intensity cycling at a workload that corresponded to the peak power achieved at the end of the ramp VO2peak test (355 +/- 10W)” Recovery intervals: 75 seconds Intensity Recovery Intervals: Low intensity cycling at 30W” Rounds: 8-12 intervals Progression: 8 intervals 1st two workouts, 10 intervals second two workouts, 12 intervals last 2 workouts. Warm up: 3 min: Duration of work intervals: 8-12 minutes Total time spent: 21-29 minutes.

    Results: In just 2 weeks, there were significant improvements in functional exercise performance and skeletal muscle adaptations (mitochondrial biogenesis). Subjects did not report any dizziness, nausea, light headedness that is often reported with all-out intervals.

    They concluded that HIIT does not have to be all-out to produce significant fitness improvements and yet the total weekly time investment could remain under 1 hour.

    On a personal note, I REALLY like this kind of interval training: 60 second work intervals repeated 8-12 times. Here’s why:

    Body composition was not measured in this study, but I believe that enough energy expenditure can be achieved with 20-30 minutes of this style of interval training to make significant body comp improvements in addition to all the cardiovascular conditioning improvements.

    That’s another problem with super-brief and super intense HIIT programs: The cardio and heart benefits are amazing, but you can only burn so many calories per minute, no matter how intensely you work. To call a 4-minute workout a “good fat burner” in the absolute sense is ridiculous.

    Somewhere in between long duration slow/moderate steady state cardio and super short super-intense HIIT lies a sweet spot for fat-burning benefits… a place where intensity X duration yield an optimal total calorie expenditure at a reasonable time investment. Perhaps this 20-30 minute HIIT workout is it?

    If you’ve read any of my other articles on cardio, you’ll know that I’m not against steady state cardio, walking or even light recreational exercise and miscellaneous activity as part of a fat loss program. All activity counts towards your total daily energy expenditure, and in fact, the little things often add up during the day more than you would imagine (just look up N.E.A.T. and see what you find).

    But for your formal “cardio training” sessions, if you’re going to use traditional cardio modes (stationary cycle, etc.) and if your goal includes fat burning, and if your time is limited, then this type of HIIT is a great choice and you can now say it is research proven…

    Not to mention… the excuse, “I don’t have enough time” has been officially busted!

    Train hard and expect success!

    Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Founder,CEO of Burn The Fat Inner Circle Burn the fat inner circle

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and Fitness Models. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements. Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

  • What No One Is Telling You About Calories In VS Calories Out

    What No One Is Telling You About Calories In VS Calories Out

    Title: What No One Is Telling You About Calories In VS Calories Out

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 776 words

    I’m going to share with you the most crucial weight loss strategy that will literally make or break your success. This is the number one fat loss tip I could ever give you. If you don’t get this right, you can kiss your fat loss results goodbye. This is the one absolute requirement for weight loss, and it’s something you’ve probably heard of before. However, there’s one critical distinction about this familiar advice that you might not have considered – and this one thing makes all the difference in the world…

    Let me quote Melvin Williams, PhD, professor emeritus of exercise science at Old Dominion University and author of the textbook Nutrition for Health, Fitness and Sport (McGraw Hill):

    “Human energy systems are governed by the same laws of physics that rule all energy transformations. No substantial evidence is available to disprove the caloric theory. It is still the physical basis for bodyweight control.”

    There are a variety of diet programs and weight loss “gurus” who claim that calories don’t count. They insist that if you eat certain foods or avoid certain foods, that’s all you have to do to lose weight. Dozens, maybe hundreds of such diets exist, with certain “magic foods” put up on a pedestal or certain “evil fat-storing foods” banished into the forbidden foods zone.

    Other weight loss “experts” invoke the insulin/carbohydrate hypothesis which claims that carbs drive insulin which drives body fat. That’s akin to saying “Carbs are the reason for the obesity crisis today, not excess calories.”

    They are all mistaken.

    Of course, there IS more to nutrition than calories in vs calories out. Food quality and nutrition content matters for good health. In addition, your food choices can affect your energy intake. We could even point the finger at an excess of refined starches and grains, sugar and soft drinks (carbs!) as major contributing factors to the surplus calories that lead to obesity.

    However, that brings us back to excess calories as the pivotal point in the chain of causation, not carbs. A caloric deficit is a required condition for weight loss – even if you opt for the low carb approach – and that’s where your focus should go – on the deficit.

    Now, here’s that critical distinction…

    You’ve heard it said, “exercise more and eat less” a million times. However, saying “focus on the calorie deficit” is NOT the same thing. If you don’t understand the difference, you could end up spinning your wheels for years.

    You could exercise more, but if you compensate by eating more, you cancel your deficit.

    You could eat less, but if you compensate by moving less, again you cancel your deficit.

    This type of compensation can happen unconsciously, which leads to confusion about why you’re not losing weight or why you’re gaining. That often leads you to make excuses or blame the wrong thing… anything but the calories.

    Therefore, “focus on the calorie deficit” more accurately states the most important key to weight loss than “exercise more and eat less.” Make sure you understand this distinction and then follow this advice.

    Last but not least, keep in mind that there are a lot of ways to establish a deficit and many of those ways are really dumb. Eating nothing but grapefruits, cabbage, twinkies… but in a deficit?… Dumb!

    The bottom line is that a calorie deficit is required for fat loss, but once your deficit is established, the composition of your hypo-caloric diet DOES matter. That’s why any good fat loss program starts with “calories in vs calories out” but doesn’t stop there – you also need to look at protein, essential fats, macronutrients, micronutrients, food quality and how the diet you choose fits into your lifestyle. This is the pivotal strategy that my entire Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle system hinges upon.

    Don’t let the simplicity of this idea fool you. This is the #1 key to your successful weight loss now and in the future: Focus on the deficit!

    Train hard and expect success,

    Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle www.BurnTheFat.com!

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com!

  • The Doctor Says, “Aerobics Will Kill You!”

    The Doctor Says, “Aerobics Will Kill You!”

    Title: The Doctor Says, “Aerobics Will Kill You!”

    By line: By Tom Venuto

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 1492 words

    The Doctor Says, “Aerobics Will Kill You!” By Tom Venuto www.BurnTheFat.com!

    I recently got an email from a reader who was told by a fairly prominent doctor/authorthat aerobics and running will “kill you” (that was more or less the gist of it). As a result, you should avoid aerobics like the plague, says this MD. Since I’ve tolerated enough “steady state cardio is dead” and “aerobics doesn’t work” nonsense over the last few years, despite the success stories I keep churning out that clearly show otherwise, (not to mention my own bodybuilding success, which includes regular cardio), I thought I should not only answer my reader, but also make this topic into an article for anyone else who may have doubts.

    Here’s the “killer cardio” question and my response:


    ——————————————————————————————
    BURN THE FAT READER EMAIL:
    ——————————————————————————————

    Tom, your articles are great. Here’s the problem. More runners die from sudden heart attack and stroke than any other form of exercise on the planet.
    It’s because nothing is more foreign to human beings than getting their heart rate up and keeping it there for long periods of time.
    Recent studies have shown that while there are benefits to aerobics, (like weight loss), in the long term, statistics show a direct increase in heart disease.
    Part of the reason for this is that in an effort to adapt to the unnatural demands being put on the body, to economize, the heart and lungs actually shrink.
    Just look at the long list of joint, bone, and muscle injuries that come along with running (it’s right there in the magazines).
    As I know you know, a serious weight lifter, if he’s paying attention to form, should almost never suffer injury from weight training. The same is true for the following:
    Instead of unnatural, self-abusive aerobics, the best way to actually increase heart and lung capacity and size is to go beyond aerobics. In short, spurts of intense exercise, such as wind-sprints, you move past your ability to produce ATP with oxygen as fast as you are using it, causing your muscles to become ATP depleted.
    That’s the point at which your anaerobic energy system kicks in. This is also known as crossing your aerobic threshold.
    Burst training, sprints, whatever you want to call it, it shouldn’t be done in addition to aerobics, it should be done in place of aerobics.
    Incidentally, I am not saying that one shouldn’t walk, jog, bicycle, swim, etc, just be reasonable.
    I had a heart condition that has been totally alleviated. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday of each week, I go through a 45 minute weight training session, followed by a 20 minutes of the interval program.
    Check it out, I think this sort of thing would be a great addition to your already good program.
    -Jeff

    ————————————————- RESPONSE: ————————————————

    While I agree with much of what you said about the benefits of intense “burst” exercise, I find the anti-running and anti-aerobics arguments promoted by these “experts” to be horribly inflexible, dogmatic and, unlike what you suggested, totally UNreasonable.

    Based on the science, I also find the argument that traditional cardio or aerobics is “unhealthy” to be wholly unconvincing. That doctor isn’t giving the full picture.

    I subscribe to many sports medicine and exercise science journals and I’ve certainly seen research papers looking at sudden death in elite runners, etc. But most of them were case studies and epidemiology. Believe me, there’s another side to the story.

    Marathon running is a highly publicized sport, and the media loves bad news, so the oxymoron of a runner dying of a heart attack makes a great story, which means greater visibility for what is actually a very rare occurrence.

    It’s also easy to cherry pick case studies on just about anything to start up a big scare.

    This comes from the American Journal of Cardiology:

    “The overall prevalence of sudden cardiac death during the marathon was only 0.002%, strikingly lower than for several other variables of risk for premature death calculated for the general U.S. population.”

    Although highly trained athletes such as marathon runners may harbor underlying and potentially lethal cardiovascular disease, the risk for sudden cardiac death associated with such intense physical effort was exceedingly small.”

    I also find comparing serious endurance athletes pushing their physical limits to regular cardio for general fitness training to be an inappropriate comparison.

    What does a rare cardiac event during a 26 mile run have to do with you doing 30 or 45 minutes of jogging or me doing 40 minutes of moderate work on the stairmaster to get cut for a bodybuilding contest?

    Even sillier are the people who keep using the late marathon runner and running author Jim Fixx as an example of anything but a guy who had a genetic predisposition for heart disease (gun was loaded). Rumor has it he was a long time smoker, too.

    I know some bodybuilders and weight lifters who died of heart attacks in the gym. Should we argue against against weight lifting too? Should we just play it safe and stay on the couch? Freak incidents happen and heredity is a factor.

    Please note, I’m saying all this as a strength/physique athlete (bodybuilder), who understands full well that excessive aerobics is counterproductive to my goals and that weight training is priority #1.

    But in the right amounts, balanced with proper recovery (as you said, “reasonable”) regular cardio can be instrumental in helping me lower my body fat and it can benefit you in many other ways, physically and mentally.

    There are MANY ways to do cardio and all of them have their place at certain times for certain people.

    What you’re talking about with sprints or burst training is also known as High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short.

    HIIT can be a great way to get cardiovascular conditioning and burn a lot of calories in a very time efficient manner.

    Furthermore, a paper just published recently in the ACSM’s Exercise and Sport Sciences Review (July 2009) discussed the research suggesting that intense aerobic interval training provides greater benefits for the heart than low or moderate intensity exercise.

    The benefits discussed included:

    • Increased maximal oxygen uptake
    • Improved heart muscle contractile function
    • Improved heart muscle calcium handling
    • reduced cardiac dysfunction in metabolic syndrome
    • Reversed pathological cardiac hypertrophy
    • Increased physiological hypertrophy of the heart muscle
    • Overall improved quality of life and length of life by avoiding fatal heart attacks.

    This is NOT an argument AGAINST regular cardio, it is evidence in favor of intense cardio.

    I like HIIT and intense types of cardio! I don’t need to add it to my program because it’s already a part of it.

    My first book about fat loss, BurnTheFat Feed The Muscle was first published in 2002 and I recommended HIIT way back then – as well as regular cardio, not one or the other. I Still do!

    There were also people promoting HIIT long before me. It’s not any revolutionary idea – people just keep putting new names and spins on it for marketing purposes.

    The problem is, to argue in favor of HIIT should not be construed as arguing against conventional cardio or aerobics.

    Many of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models used slow, steady state cardio exclusively prior to competitions and they got ripped right down to the six pack abs. They didn’t die of a heart attack and they didn’t lose muscle either.

    In fact, many bodybuilders opt for low intensity cardio specifically for muscle retention when they get to the tail end of contest prep where body fat stores are getting low and food intake is low. Adding more high intensity training on top of all the weight training is often catabolic in that caloric deficit situation.

    Listen, HIIT and other types of intense cardio are great. It’s time efficient, making it ideal for the busy person, and its very effective for both fat loss and cardiovascular conditioning. It’s also more engaging, as many people find longer, slower sessions of cardio boring.

    If you have a history of heart disease and you smoke like a chimney and at the same time you decide you want to take up marathon running, ok, I’ll concede to some caution.

    But, “Aerobics is going to kill you!”??????

    GIVE ME A BREAK!

    Perfect marketing hook for a cultish “HIIT is the only way” type of program… little more.

    Bottom line: sure, do your HIIT, do your sprints, do your Tabatas….

    OR…

    Do your regular steady state aerobics or running too…

    Or, do a little bit of everything like I do!

    Be sure weight training is your foremost training priority and then do whatever type of cardio you enjoy and whatever type gets you the best results.

    If you like to run, then RUN, and tell the “experts” who say otherwise to BUZZ OFF and take their sensationalistic journalism and marketing with them!

    Train hard and expect success!

    Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

    Founder & CEO of Burn The Fat Inner Circle at www.BurnTheFat.com!

    About the Author:

    Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World’s Best Bodybuilders and Fitness Models. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs or supplements. Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn stubborn body fat, find out which foods burn fat and which foods turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss report and mini course by visiting Tom’s site at: www.BurnTheFat.com!

  • How I Got “Ripped” Abs For The Very First Time

    How I Got “Ripped” Abs For The Very First Time

    Title: How I Got “Ripped” Abs For The Very First Time

    By line: By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT

    URL: www.BurnTheFat.com!

    Word count: 2222 words

    I’ll never forget the very first time I got ripped, how I did it and how it felt. I’ve never told this entire story before or widely published my early photos either. Winning first place and seeing my abs the first time was sweet redemption. But before that, it was a story of desperation…

    I started lifting weights for bodybuilding when I was 14 years old, but I never had ripped abs until I was 20. I endured six years of frustration and embarrassment. Being a teenager is hard enough, but imagine how I felt being a self-proclaimed bodybuilder, with no abs or muscle definition to show for it. Imagine what it was like in swimming class or when we played basketball in gym class and I prayed to be called out for “shirts” and not ‘”skins” because I didn’t want any one seeing my “man-boobs” and ab flab jiggling all over the court.

    Oh, I had muscle. I started gaining muscle from the moment I picked up a barbell. I got strong too. I was benching 315 at age 18. But even after four years of successful strength training, I still hadn’t figured out this getting ripped thing. Muscle isn’t very attractive if it’s covered up with a layer of fat. That’s where the phrase “bulky” really comes from – fat on top of muscle. It can look worse than just fat.

    I read every book. I read every magazine. I tried every exercise. I took every supplement in vogue back in the 80’s (remember bee pollen, octacosanol, lipotropics and dessicated liver?) I tried not eating for entire days at a time. I went on a rope skipping kick. I did hundreds of crunches and ab exercises. I rode the Lifecycle. I wore rubber waist belts.

    The results were mediocre at best. When I made progress, I couldn’t maintain it. One step forward, one step back. Even when I got a little leaner, it wasn’t all the way. Still no ripped abs. When I played football and they beat the crap out of us at training camp, I lost weight, but STILL didn’t get all the way down to those elusive six pack abs. In fact, it was almost like I got “skinny fat.” My arms and legs lost some muscle but the small roll of ab fat was still there.

     

    Why was it so hard? What was I doing wrong? It was driving me crazy!

    My condition got worse in college because I mixed with a party crowd. With boozing came eating, and the “bulk” accumulated even more. At that point, the partying and social life were more important to me than my body. I was still lifting weights, but wasn’t living a fitness lifestyle.

    Mid way through college I changed my major from business management to exercise science, having made up my mind to pursue a career in fitness. That’s when I started to feel something wasn’t right. The best word for it is “incongruence.” That’s when what you say you want to be and what you really are don’t match. Being a fitness professional means you have to walk the talk and be a role model to others. Anything else is hypocrisy. I knew I had to shape up or forget fitness as a career.

    But after four years, I STILL didn’t know how to get ripped! Nothing I learned in exercise physiology class helped. All the theory was interesting, but when theory hit the real world, things didn’t always work out like they did on paper. My professors didn’t know either. Heck, most of them weren’t even in shape! Two of them were overweight, including my nutrition professor.

    However, out of my college experience did come the seeds of the solution and my first breakthrough.

    In one of my physical education classes, we were required to do some running and we were instructed to keep track of our performance and resting heart rates. Somehow, even though I was a strength athlete, I got hooked on running. After the initial discomfort of hauling around a not so cardio-fit 205 pound body, I started to get a lot of satisfaction out of watching my resting heart rate drop from the 70’s into the 50’s and seeing my running times get better and better. And then it happened: I started getting leaner than I ever had before.

    The results motivated me to no end, and I kept after it even more. My runs would be 5 or 6 days a week and I’d go for between 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I had a circular route of about 6 miles and I would run it for time, almost always pushing for a personal record. When I finished, I was spent, drenched in sweat and sometimes just crashing when I got home. And I kept getting even leaner.

    That’s when I started to figure it out. If you’re expecting me to say that running is the secret, no, that’s NOT it per se. I was thinking bigger picture. In fact, I noticed that my legs had lost some muscle size, so I knew that over-doing the runs would be counter productive, ultimately, and I don’t run that much anymore these days. But that’s how I did it the first time and I had never experienced fat loss like that before. The fat was falling off and I had barely changed my diet.

    My “aha moment” was when I realized the pivotal piece in the puzzle was calories. It wasn’t the type of exercise, it wasn’t the specific foods and it wasn’t supplements. Today I realize that it’s the calorie deficit that matters the most, not whether you eat less or burn more per se, but in my case creating a large deficit by burning the calories was the absolute key for me.

    These runs were burning an enormous number of calories. Everything I had done before wasn’t burning enough to make a noticeable difference in a short period of time. 10-15 minutes of rope skipping wasn’t enough. 45 minutes of slow-go bike riding wasn’t burning enough. Hundreds of crunches weren’t enough. I put 1+1+1 together and realized it was intensity X duration X frequency = highest the total calorie burn for the week. How much simpler could it be? It wasn’t magic. It was MATH!

    It was consistency too. This was the first time in SIX YEARS I stuck with it. Body fat comes off by the grams every day – literally. Kilos and pounds of body weight may come off quickly, but they come back just as fast. Body fat comes off slowly and if you have no patience or you jump to one program to the next without following through with the one you started, you’re doomed. In six years, I had “tried everything”… except consistency and patience.

    Then the stakes went up. I had finally gotten lean, but there was another level beyond lean… RIPPED! My buddies at the gym noticed me getting leaner and then they popped the question: Why don’t you compete? My training partner Steve had already competed 3 years earlier and won the Teenage Mr. America competition. Since then, I had been all talk and no walk. “Yeah, I’m going to compete one of these days too… I’m going to be the next Mr. America.” Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. The only title I had won was “Mr. Procastinator.” Then finally, Steve and my other friends challenged me almost in an ultimatum type of way. Well, the truth is, I set myself up for it with my big mouth and they called me out, so I would have been the laughing stock of our gym if I didn’t follow through.

    The first time you do a real cut – all the way down to contest-ready – is the hardest. Not as much physically as psychologically, simply because you’ve never done it before. Doing something you’ve done before is no big deal. Doing something you’ve never done before causes uncertainty and fear, sometimes even terror! I was plagued with self-doubt the entire time, never sure if I was ever going to get there. It seemed like it was taking forever. But failure was not an option. Not only did I have an entire gym full of friends rooting me on, I had great training partner who was natural Mr. Teenage America! The pressure was on. I had to do it. There was no way out. No excuses.

    Some other day, I’ll tell you all the details of the emotional roller coaster ride that was my first contest diet, but let it suffice to say, at that point, I still didn’t know what I was doing. It was only later that I went into “human guinea pig” mode with nutritional experiments and finally pinned down the eating side of the equation to a science (and gained 20 lbs of stage-weight muscle as a result).

    In the late 1980’s, the standard bodybuilding diet was high carb, low fat. For that first competition, I was on 60% carbs – including pancakes, boxed cereal, whole grain bread, and pasta – so I guess you can toss out the idea that it’s impossible to get ripped on high carbs – although high carb is NOT the contest diet I use today. But it didn’t matter, because I had already learned the critical piece in the fat loss puzzle – the calorie balance equation. Understanding that one aspect of physiology was enough to get me ripped. It only got better later.

    In the end, I took 2nd place at my very first competition, the Natural Lehigh Valley, and one month later, I won first place at the Natural New Jersey. Seven months later, the overall Natural Pennsylvania.

    Looking back, was all the effort worth it? Well, my good friend Adam Waters, who is an accountability coach, teaches his students about using “redemption” as a motivator. Remember the Charles Atlas ad where the skinny kid got sand kicked in his face and then came back big and buffed and beat up the bully? That’s redemption. Or the dateless high school nerd who comes back to the 10 year class reunion driving a Mercedes with the prom queen on his arm? That’s redemption.

    After all the doubt, heartache and frustration I went through for six years, I not only had my trophies, my abs were on the front page of the sports section in our small Pennsylvania town newspaper. The following year, I was on the poster for a bodybuilding competition… as the previous year’s champion. THAT’S REDEMPTION. You tell me if it was worth it.

    There are 7 lessons from my story that I want to share with you because even if you have a different personal history than I do, these 7 lessons are the keys to achieving any previously elusive fitness goal for the first time and I think they apply to everyone.

    1. Set the big goal and go for it. If your goal doesn’t excite you and scare you at the same time, your goal is too small. If you don’t feel fear or uncertainty, you’re inside your comfort zone. Puny goals aren’t motivating. Sometimes it takes a competition or a big challenge of some kind to get your blood boiling.

    2. Align your values with your goals. I understood my values and made a decision to be congruent with who I really was and who I wanted to be. When you know your values, get your priorities straight and align your goals with your values, then doing what it takes is easy.

    3. Do the math. Stop looking for magic. A lean body does not come from any particular type of exercise or foods per se, it’s the calories burned vs calories consumed that determines fat loss or fat gain. You might do better by decreasing the calories consumed, whereas I depended more on increasing the calories burned, but either way, it’s still a math equation. Deny it at your own risk.

    4. Get social support. Support and encouragement from your friends can help get you through anything. Real time accountability to a training partner or trainer can make all the difference.

    5. Be consistent. Nothing will ever work if you don’t work at it every day. Sporadic efforts don’t just produce sporadic results, sometimes they produce zero results.

    6. Persist through difficulty and self doubt. If you think it’s going to be smooth sailing all the way with no ups and downs, you’re fooling yourself.. For every sunny day, there’s going to be a storm. If you can’t weather the storms, you’ll never reach new shores.

    7. Redeem yourself. Non-achievers sit on the couch and wallow in past failures. Winners use past failures as motivational rocket fuel. It always feels good to achieve a goal, but nothing feels as good as achieving a goal with redemption.

    Postscript: My journey continued. Since that initial first place trophy, I have competed as a natural for life bodybuilder 26 more times, including 7 first place awards and 7 runner up awards. And yes, I finally nailed down the nutrition side of things too. You can read more about that and the fat loss program that developed as a result at www.BurnTheFat.com!

     

     

    Tom Venuto Newspaper Photo

    Train hard and expect success always,

    Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS Fat Loss Coach www.BurnTheFat.com!

    About the Author:
    Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified personal trainer and freelance fitness writer. Tom is the author of “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com!

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