You wanna know how to to burn more calories? You sure? Because what I’m about to share with you isn’t gonna be easy.
After a few rounds of this, your legs will literally feel like they’re on fire, which is really quite ironic since they’ll be dripping with sweat. Your lungs will have you believe you’re a fire-breathing dragon and your heart will feel like it’s pumping battery acid. And if you’re a redhead like me, your entire cranium may morph into a fireball for a few minutes afterward. It’s ok, I’ve survived this many times myself – just don’t inhale too much smoke. Now, if that wasn’t enough already, the good news is that you’ll also be burning calories and burning fat like a pro. If that sounds like a fun time, then you and I share some of the same character flaws, and this will be right up your alley.
 You won't be smiling when you're done with this. Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lululemonathletica/ I know, I know. You’re probably looking for a top 10 list of suggestions for how to burn more calories – with neatly arranged bullet points and liberal use of the bold feature. But the truth is that burning calories isn’t exactly rocket-science, folks. Everything we do burns calories. Eating burns calories. Digestion burns calories. I know it’s hard to believe, but sleeping and even just thinking burn calories, too. So, if you’re looking for advice like “drink more caffeinated green tea and chew gum all day,” then look elsewhere sweetie-pie. This place is reserved for men and women of resolve. There are no wusses in this corner.
Continue reading How to Burn More Calories Than a Triathlete on Adrenaline
Note from John Siff: This is a guest post from CST Coach John Belkewitch, a fitness pro from New Jersey (pronounced “Joisey”). I met John last year and can speak for his diligence in his CST practice and knowledge of fitness. He’s a talented and dedicated athlete, and from what I hear, he’s also [...]
Note: this is a guest article by my friend and colleague, Tom Venuto.
“How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?” That’s right up there with “How do I get six pack abs” as one of the most frequently asked fitness questions of all time. The problem is, when you ask it, you get all kinds of conflicting answers – even from experts who are supposed to know these things. So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?
Short answer: Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat at the “same time.”
Long answer: It’s difficult and it’s complicated. Allow me to explain….
First we have the issue of whether you really lose fat and gain muscle at the “same time.”
Well, yes, if your definition of the “same time” is say, a month or 12 weeks. But in that case, you’re probably not gaining muscle at the “same time” literally speaking, as in, right now this very moment you are reading this, or 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for months in a row.
The best explanation for what’s really happening is that you alternate between periods of caloric surplus (anabolism) and caloric deficit (catabolism) and the net result is a gain in muscle and a loss in body fat.
You see, if you stay in a calorie surplus, it’s the body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go up together. And if you stay in a calorie deficit, it’s your body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go down together.
There may be exceptions, but the general rule is that it is very difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time – the mechanisms are mostly antagonistic to one another. When it does happen, it’s almost always the result of “unusual conditions” – I call them X factors. Continue reading How To Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time
 This is a guest column by Dr. Kathryn Woodall for expressing health first. It was originally published in the RMAX Magazine, volume 7, issue 6. I thought it was such an excellent piece, and Kathryn was kind enough to allow me to republish it here for you. The knowledge she conveys in this article doesn’t come from mere education, it comes from in-the-trenches experience. You may be shocked or even scared to digest this food for thought, but I assure you that this is the reality we are facing today. We are in desperate times, and knowledge is the greatest asset we can share with each other.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” You’ve heard it thousands of times, but what does it mean when it comes to your health? It means you need to identify and take care of limiting factors.
We’ve talked about how the food you eat and absorb, the movement you do, and the thoughts you think (your paradigm) all work to create ‘you.’ If those basic components create your health or destroy it should you neglect or abuse them, then those are the first places you should look for weak links. With the exception of trauma and poison, the point at which your health begins to breakdown can almost always be traced back to those three components—they can be the limiting factor when it comes to the degree of health you create and enjoy.
In this article, I’m going to give an example of how something as simple as ‘the food you eat and absorb’ can be your weakest link. I’m not presenting an actual case history—it’s just one possible scenario designed to show you how interconnected your health is.
Continue reading Your Weakest Link – is it Food, Movement, Thoughts, or Knowledge?
Note: This is a guest post from Ryan Murdock and Adam Steer, the BodyweightCoach.com experts.
While a six-pack stomach may be the most conventional benchmark of athletic beauty, functional abdominal strength goes deeper and is far more important than vanity. A strong core improves your posture and reduces the likelihood of lower back pain. It plays a stabilizing role in virtually every movement you do—from carrying the groceries or bending down to tie your shoes to throwing a ball or pulling a heavy lift. It is also the source of power generation in most athletic activities.
We’re going to build a killer core with bodyweight exercise, in as little as 12-minutes per session.
How?
By training in 6 degrees of freedom.
Training in 6-Degrees of Freedom
What the heck does that mean?
It’s a term we took from aviation, because it most accurately describes how your body moves through space.
We don’t move robotically through one plane at a time. Human movement is a complex weave through different planes and on different axes. If we take the three axes of conventional movement descriptions, we can think about moving both along and around those axes in order to take advantage of our true movement potential.
 CST 6 Degrees of Freedom
• Heaving: moving up and down
• Swaying: moving right and left
• Surging: moving forward and backward
• Pitching: bending forward and backward
• Yawing: twisting right and left
• Rolling: bending or tilting right and left
The bottom line?
Training in 6-Degrees of Freedom will kick your butt faster than any other method.
Why does that matter? It means you’ll be finished training sooner. Training in 6-Degrees will also ensure that your body remains balanced. You won’t waste time dealing with overuse injuries, or overcompensations created by doing the same repetitive movements in the same planes day after day.
That’s a brief primer on the theory. Let’s get to the program.
Continue reading The Bodyweight Glide Workout Series for a Functionally Fit Body and Shredded Core Muscles
This is a guest post by my friend Tom Venuto about the steady state cardio versus high intensity interval training cardio debate. There is a lot of misinformation going around concerning these topics, and many guru’s making some outrageous claims. I think Tom gets to the heart of the matter with this article, and I’ll let the information speak for itself.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 5x Less Effective than Steady State Cardio???
High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT for short, has been promoted as one of the most effective training methods ever to come down the pike, both for fat loss and for cardiovascular fitness. One of the most popular claims for HIIT is that it burns “9 times more fat” than conventional (steady state) cardio. This figure was extracted from a study performed by Angelo Tremblay at Laval University in 1994. But what if I told you that HIIT has never been proven to be 9 times more effective than regular cardio… What if I told you that the same study actually shows that HIIT is 5 times less effective than steady state cardio??? Read on and see the proof for yourself. Continue reading High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) 5x Less Effective than Steady State Cardio??? Guest Article by Tom Venuto CSCS, NSCA-CPT
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