Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 10/13/11

Written on October 13, 2011 at 5:25 am, by Eric Cressey

Here’s this week’s list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Thoracolumbar Fascia: An Area Rich with Activity – This was an outstanding guest blog from Patrick Ward on Mike Reinold’s site.  I’m a big fan of Patrick’s writing; he really does an excellent job of blending manual therapy with corrective exercise.

Why Finger Pointing at Carbs is Missing the Point – Brian St. Pierre kicks off what is sure to be a great series by focusing on yet another area in which we overreact on the nutrition side of things.

Why You Need More Strength – In my eyes, this is one of the best things Chad Waterbury has ever written – and Chad is a super-bright guy who has written a lot of excellent stuff.

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Why Nobody Except Your Mom Reads Your Fitness Blog

Written on April 20, 2011 at 2:32 pm, by Eric Cressey

I got an email from Dean Somerset last weekend if I’d be willing to write up a post for his blog about how I built up a popular fitness blog myself.  I thought it over, and while I like Dean and enjoy reading his blog, I really didn’t think I was the right person to write such a piece.  There are folks who are much smarter when it comes to behind-the-scenes stuff that goes in to running a blog – from WordPress updates, to HTML formatting, to SEO optimization.   And, there are certainly folks out there who have monetized their blog far better than I ever will.

That said, I do feel that there was one incredibly valuable point I should make to the aspiring fitness bloggers out there:

If you don’t have good content, your blog won’t get consistent traffic.  It’s really that simple.

I started this blog in early 2006 with really no idea what I was doing on the technology side of things.  I loved my job and was passionate about teaching – and writing gave me an avenue through which to do it.  Sometimes, I wrote about what I knew well, and sometimes, I wrote about topics where I wanted to improve – and researching them and teaching them to others was the best way to get better in these areas.  Before I ever hired someone to make my site look pretty, I’d built up a solid following of people who knew me purely for my content, enthusiasm, and accessibility to readers.

A trend I see with “rookie” fitness bloggers nowadays is to design a spectacular site from the get-go and devote all their resources to SEO optimization, pop-up ads, Google Adwords, and the like.  Unfortunately, these efforts are sabotaged by these bloggers’ poor grammar/spelling and, more significantly, a complete lack of valuable information to offer to readers.

In any industry, you look for commonalities among those who succeed at what we do.  For ease of calculating “success,” let’s just use Alexa ranking.   You can learn more about it (and download a free toolbar) at www.Alexa.com, but for the sake of brevity, just understand that it is a measure of the popularity of a website.  Get more hits, receive more inbound links from popular sites, and have people spending more time on your site, and your Alexa rank will go down (a lower number is better).  Google is #1, Facebook is #2, Yahoo is #3, and so on.  It’s not a perfect measure by any means, but when you are dealing in the top one million sites or so, it’s generally accepted to be pretty good. I’m lucky to be at around 101,000 right now, and have been as high as 89,000 in the past.

If you’re in the top one million or so, you’re likely doing some very good traffic – and certainly enough to monetize your blog.  My buddy Tim Ferriss’ blog, for instance, currently has an Alexa ranking of 3,644, and he’s an absolute ninja on the entrepreneurial side of things, with two New York Times bestsellers and ownership stakes in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, and several other companies.  He’s a success, in part, because every single one of his posts (and books) provides outstanding content that readers not only enjoy – but pass along to their friends.

Translating this message to the fitness industry, look at a guy like Charlie Weingroff.  He might be one of the few guys out there who understands technology less than I do, and there is absolutely nothing flashy about his site.  To be candid, it’s pretty basic.  You know what, though?  Charlie is an extremely bright (and strong) dude with a ton to teach, a passion for teaching it, and a knack for relating complex information in a user-friendly manner.  I don’t think his blog has even been out for a year, yet he’s ranked around 639,000.  And, he’s used his blog to make his expertise known, build a loyal following, and launch a successful product (which is outstanding, by the way).

There are several other fitness bloggers who’ve become “top one million” success stories purely with content.  John Berardi dominates with Precision Nutrition (64,000), which has been built with science, integrity, and an ultra-personal touch to great content all along.  My business partner, Tony Gentilcore (706,000) kicks out great content and entertains people like crazy.  My good friend Mike Robertson (103,000) is an awesome teacher and genuinely great guy.  Nick Tumminello (537,000) innovates like crazy to build a following, and Chad Waterbury (475,000) only recently created his own web presence and has used content to quickly ascend the ranks.  Nate Green (202,000) is an excellent writer who has carved out a great niche for himself and built a great following at a young age because of his unique content.  Mike Reinold (400,000) has built a great following in a smaller internet segment (physical therapists) with consistent content featuring up-to-date research, attention to many different clinical perspectives, and a specific focus on upper extremity dysfunction.  These guys all offer something others don’t.

You know who hasn’t built a big following?

• The random fitness dudes who send Facebook friend requests to my wife because they have mutual friends – and these guys want to build their lists.  I’ve yet to meet a single one who is in the top 2 million.

• The “fitness business guru” who emailed me four times, called my office twice, and snail-mailed me once (each of which was ignored) to try to get me to promote his product, which he guaranteed would make personal trainers “rich.”  His website ranked at higher than 6.6 million – which essentially means that he has zero traffic other than himself (and he’s probably just checking in to see if he’s gotten his first hit yet).  Instead of focusing on content (and moving out of his parents’ basement), he’s putting the cart in front of the horse and trying to sell a product on a topic (success) that he doesn’t even understand.

• The random dude who wants to exchange links with me or be added to my blogroll so that he can improve his rankings without doing a thing, much less providing some value to me (or society in general).

The only thing that’s worse than sucking at what you do is sucking at what you do and spending time and money to draw attention to it.

I started out thinking that this would be a short, to-the-point, blog, but as I now realize, that one little point was actually a very big one.  Pretty websites and behind-the-scenes tinkering are undoubtedly important components of taking an online presence to the next level, but the truth is that they don’t matter a bit unless the content that accompanies them is useful and entertaining.

If it’s not, then you’ll have a hard time even getting Mom’s attention.

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Strength Training Programs for the Pros and the Joes: Not as Different as You Might Think

Written on February 24, 2011 at 12:33 pm, by Eric Cressey

Yesterday, New England Sports Network (NESN) ran a feature on my work with Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox.  In the background of the video, you’ll notice several other professional athletes (including a pro soccer player and pro triathlete) doing their thing, too.  What’s perhaps more interesting, though, is that you’ll even see some general fitness clients getting after it at the same time.

It reminded me of an interview Chad Waterbury did with me for his website a while back; the focus was what ordinary folks can learn from professional athletes, and how they’re alike/different in the gym.  I think that there are some valuable takeaway points:

CW: You work with a lot of high-performance athletes. What are three principles that apply equally to athletes and non-athletes?

EC: I think people would be surprised to realize just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.

The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic.  Like everyone else, they spend time surfing the internet, Skyping, playing video games, and goofing around on Facebook/Twitter.  The advances in technology have hurt everyone from a physical fitness standpoint – but brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together, believe it or not.

They’re also very similar in that they want the most bang for their buck.  Most pro athletes are no different than anyone else in that they want to get in their training, and then go to visit their families, relax, play golf, or whatever else.  They really don’t have interest in putting in six hours per day in training outside of the times when they have to do so (namely, in-season).

All that said, if I had to pick three principles crucial to the success of both populations, they’d be the following:

1.  Realize that consistency is everything. I always tell our clients from all walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs are ones that are sustainable.  It’s not about working hard for three months and making great progress – only to fall off the bandwagon for a month.  This is absolutely huge for professional athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they just can’t afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they want to improve from year to year.

If a program isn’t conducive to your goals and lifestyle, then it isn’t a good program.  That’s why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week strength training options – plus five supplemental conditioning options and a host of exercise modifications – when I pulled Show and Go together; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.

Likewise, I wanted it to be safe; a program isn’t good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising.  Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood of injury via means like mobility drills, supplemental stretching recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training stress, and alternative strength exercises (“plan B”) in case you aren’t quite ready to execute “Plan A.”

2. You must balance competing demands, and prioritize the ones that are the most pressing at a given time. Using our professional baseball pitchers as an example, their training consists of strength training, mobility drills, medicine ball throws, movement training, and the throwing program (which is near daily in nature).  In the Cressey Performance system, when the throwing program ramps up, the medicine ball work must come down substantially, and the strength training tapers off just a bit.  You simply can’t keep adding sets and reps without subtracting something else and making a tradeoff, as athletes only have a certain amount of recovery capacity, and it’s hard to fine-tune an exact movement like throwing a baseball if you’re fatigued from everything else.

Managing competing demands is arguably more challenging in the general population, as their jobs outside the gym are usually more stressful than those that face many professional athletes – meaning that the Joes and the Janes have less recovery capacity with which to work.  It seems logical that when you add something to a program, you have to subtract something else – but I’m constantly amazed at how many people decide to just keep adding more volume when they can’t lose fat or gain muscle mass fast enough.  Sometimes, you just need to change the composition of the program, not add more and more, thereby creating three-hour marathon training sessions. This leads to my next point…

3. The success comes from the overall program, not just the individual parts. In other words, synergy is everything.

The aforementioned pitchers can’t just go out and start a throwing program after doing nothing for three months.  Rather, they need to work to enhance their mobility and get stronger, more reactive, and more powerful first.  If they skip these important steps, they increase their likelihood of injury, make it harder to re-acquire a skilled movement, and reduce the likelihood of improvement.

In the general population, a good strength and conditioning program consists of tremendous interdependencies.  Your deadlift technique and strength depends on the training you’ve done in the previous month, week, and day – and how thorough and targeted your mobility warm-up (or lack thereof, in many unfortunate cases) was prior to that day’s training session.  Those trainees who have the best results are the ones that line everything up – from nutrition, to strength training, to mobility exercises, to movement training, to metabolic conditioning, to recovery protocols.

CW: It’s common for people to think they’re advanced when they’re really not. Can you mention a few things a pro athlete typically does that a weekend warrior shouldn’t do?

EC: I would strongly discourage non-professional athletes from holding shirtless press conferences in their driveways while exercising during contract holdouts.

Then again, I wouldn’t really recommend that to Terrell Owens or any professional athlete, for that matter, but I digress…

To be honest, in the context of resistance training, a lot of professional athletes aren’t really as advanced as you might think, especially after a long season that’s taken its toll on them.  Many of them have a ton of similarities with our general fitness clients – but just have different exercise contraindications and energy systems needs.

I think the better comparison would be between novice lifters (less than one year of resistance training) and those with years and years under their belt.  They have to do things quite a bit differently.

As a first example, the novice lifter can handle a lot more volume because he (or she, of course) is relatively neurally inefficient.  If this lifter did the volume of an advanced athlete, he might actually undertrain on volume (and possibly overdo it on intensity to the point that it’d interfere with picking up appropriate technique).

Second, a really advanced lifter will often need to deload on intensity – meaning that when it’s time for a “backoff week” – he’ll often keep the sets and reps up, but take a lot of weight on the bar. It’s just about getting reps in.  A novice lifter, on the other hand, is better off keeping the intensity up and dropping the number of reps.

Third, a novice lifter can often be more aggressive in terms of caloric intake because there is such a large window of adaptation ahead in terms of muscle weight gain.  I gained 50 pounds in my first year of lifting, but nowadays – even though I’m five times as strong as I was then – if I can go up 3-4 quality pounds a year, I’m thrilled.  Surely, lifters are the opposite ends of the experience continuum can’t have similar caloric needs – even if the more experienced ones are heavier.  Skinny novice guys can sometimes get away with eating like absolute crap as long as there are enough total calories  – and still end up getting bigger.  I certainly don’t advise it, but it’s one more way to show that novice and experienced lifters are horses of different colors, and that you have to be honest with yourself on where you fall on this continuum so that you train and eat optimally.

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Exercise and Stress: 6 Strength Training Tips for When You’re Already Overworked

Written on January 11, 2011 at 7:17 am, by Eric Cressey

Right now is the busiest time of year at Cressey Performance on top of our facility having more clients than ever.  So, needless to say, life is a bit crazy and there are times when I admittedly get stressed out and wish there were more hours in the day to get everything I have on my plate done – and still have time left over to spend with my wife and family.

And, while I haven’t managed to figure out how to add more than 24 hours to the day, I have started to find a few ways to better manage my time – and, more specifically, my strength training program.

You see, many people use exercise as a means of relieving stress – and I think that’s absolutely awesome.  Unfortunately, when you already work 10 hours a day on your feet in a gym, it’s hard to see things that way even when all the equipment is right at your fingertips.  To that end, the stressed-out strength training tips I note below will be applicable to folks in any occupation, not just the fitness industry.

Tip #1: Increase training frequency, but reduce training duration.

I find that when I’m busy, I can find 30 minutes here and there, but getting 60-75 minutes free at a convenient time is tougher.  One thing I’ll do is simply up my training frequency to 5-6 times per week instead of just four sessions.  Rather than having sessions that include four pairings (7-8 strength exercises), I’ll just have two pairings (3-4 exercises).

If you’ve read anything from Chad Waterbury or Joel Marion, you’ll find that both of these guys are fans of strength training as frequently as possible, provided that you can recover from those sessions.  Somewhat coincidentally, sometimes the best way to utilize this frequent strength training approach is when you’re already stressed and recovery is compromised!  I still get in all my “work” over the course of the week, but it’s spread out a bit more so that it’s convenient and less taxing.

Tip #2: Leave the gym feeling refreshed.

Also on the “less taxing” front, I think it’s important to leave the gym feeling “refreshed,” not exhausted.  While it might feel good when your legs are trashed at the end of a training session, you really don’t know how well you’re going to recover from that challenge until the days that follow.  Doing 15 sets of 9 reps might have sounded like a good stress buster at the time, but when you can’t walk up the steps to work the following day and are falling asleep at your desk at 11am because you couldn’t sleep with your legs cramping all night, hindsight definitely becomes 20/20.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s a time and a place for doing crazy stuff.  Your most stressful days aren’t that time, though.

Tip #3: Train early.

This is something that I’ve grown to love with the baseball off-season in full swing and my day starting earlier.  Normally, I train alongside the rest of our staff at 10:30AM, but at this time of year, I may have athletes at 9:30AM MoTuThFr.  So, more and more, I’m getting in at 8:15AM to get my lifting session in.  Why?

First, lifting early requires planning.  You need to go to bed early and prepare your stuff for the next day.  So, in the process, you make time instead of finding time.  That’s huge at a stressful time when you’re inclined to miss a session altogether.

Second, most people I know (at least the adults out there) have better energy in the morning than after a long day of work.  That said, many people take a few weeks to warm up to the idea (and feeling) of training early.  If you’re going to make the switch, give it a few weeks and be consistent with it; you’ll find that you get more and more comfortable with morning training with each new session.

Third, I’m a firm believer in the adage that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight.   When you train in the morning, you’ve got to get to bed earlier or else it simply isn’t going to happen.

Get better sleep quality and just about everything else in your life will improve.

Tip #4: Outsource things to keep training fun.

I’ll admit that many times, after a long day in a strength and conditioning facility, the last thing I want to do is follow my own weight training program.  I spend all day getting other people organized on that front, so a bit of chaos in my own strength training is sometimes welcomed relief.

About two months ago, believe it or not, I asked one of my pro baseball players (who was hanging out in the office at 7pm one night) to put a lower body program up on the dry erase board for me.  It turned out to be one of the better training sessions I’d had in weeks.  The same goes for any conditioning I may do; often, I’ll just pull Robert Dos Remedios’ book, Cardio Strength Training, off the shelf and give something a shot.

Variety may be the spice of life, but when it comes to training, that variety usually needs to come from someone else.  It might be why so many fitness professionals have really enjoyed my Show and Go program; it not only demonstrates some of my programming approaches, but also gives them a change of pace in their own training, as my last blog post showed.

Tip #5: Use less variety.

Normally, I am all about strength exercise variety within a training session.  However, when you’re pinched for time, sometimes you can just throw that out the window and it’s the best decision.

Think about it: for every additional exercise in a day’s session, I add a warm-up set as well as the need for equipment set-up.  If I keep my training day to 2-3 strength exercises and just increase the volume on each, I can usually do just as much (if not more) work in less time.  You get variety over the course of a training phase and career; you get a training effect within a single session.

In other words, don’t be shy about doing 5 sets of 3 on deadlifts, then 4 sets of 8 on dumbbell reverse lunges from a deficit – and then calling it a day for your lower body training – especially if you’re trying out the frequency recommendations I noted earlier.

Tip #6: Use deloading periods.

At the end of the day, when it really comes down to it, stress is stress.  Sometimes, when life is beating you down, adding training stress to that personal/professional stress is the worst that you can do.  As a general rule of thumb, the more training experience you have, the more likely you are to need some down time from the gym when the rest of your life gets super hectic.  If you’re new to the iron game, though, chances are that some exercise will help you manage the stress much more effectively.

For more information on how to attack deloading periods, check out my e-book, The Art of the Deload.

These six strength training tips are obviously just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exercise and stress, but hopefully they’ll be enough to get you headed in the right direction.  Additionally, what strategies have those of you out there implemented for training during stressful times?

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Weight Training Programs: Product Reviews

Written on December 28, 2010 at 3:38 am, by Eric Cressey

As you probably know, when I come across high-quality products that I really enjoy that I think will be a good fit for my audience, I am thrilled to be able to write up thorough reviews for you.  This way, it not only gives some love to these products’ deserving creators (and learn myself!), but also gives you more background to make sure that it’s a good fit for you if you opt to purchase it.

To that end, I wanted to use today’s post to highlight the top seven products I reviewed in 2010.  Considering that I receive literally dozens of products in the mail each year to review (I still have a stack left to cover), these represent not just the cream of the crop, but the ones where I actually had the time and inclination to write something up.  Check them out by category:

For the Fitness Professionals:

Muscle Imbalances Revealed – This set of six webinars can be viewed conveniently from the comforts of your own home.  No travel or shipping charges to ruin your day!  Check out my review Product Review: Muscle Imbalances Revealed.

The Single-Leg Solution – Mike Robertson is a great friend of mine – but that’s not the only reason I liked this product.  It was very thorough, well-researched and written, and offered some excellent coaching cues that any fitness professional would be wise to study up on.  My review is The Single-leg Solution: Detailed Product Review.

Rehab=Training, Training=Rehab – This long-awaited debut product from Charlie Weingroff was just released in the last few weeks, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.  Even if you don’t pick up a copy, you’ll learn quite a bit from my two-part review: Rehab=Training, Training=Rehab: Top 10 Takeaways – Part 1 and Rehab=Training, Training=Rehab, Top 10 Takeaways – Part 2.

Movement – I just realized that I never got around to writing up a review of this great book from Gray Cook, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an excellent read.  I HIGHLY recommend it.

For the Fat Loss Enthusiasts (then again, can you really be enthusiastic about having to lose fat?):

Body of Fire – This fat loss resource from Chad Waterbury was great for the masses – especially if you only have minimal equipment at your fingertips.  I loved the focus on movement rather than just crazy high volume training.  Check out my interview with him: Waterbury on Why Most Fat Loss Plans Fail Miserably – and a Better Approach.

Final Phase Fat Loss – John Romaniello’s first product is a great fit for those trying to lose those stubborn last few pounds of body fat, especially if they are masochists who enjoy a very challenging program!  For more information, check out Final Phase Fat Loss: An Interview with John Romaniello.

For the Athletes:

The Truth About Quickness – I’m a big fan of Kelly Baggett, and he collaborated with Alex Maroko to create an excellent resource for up-and-coming athletes.  I gave Kelly the spotlight with three pieces: How to Get Quick…Quickly: An Interview with Kelly Baggett, and The 5 Most Common Speed, Quickness, and Explosiveness Problems in Athletes Part 1 and Part 2.

That wraps it up for the best of 2010 product reviews; hopefully you can reward yourself with some late holiday shopping by picking up one or more of these items; you won’t regret it.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the best videos of 2010.

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The New Era of Interval Training

Written on July 23, 2010 at 5:13 am, by Eric Cressey

Most of you already know by now that I’m not a fan of “traditional” cardio.

Step aerobics classes have ruined enough knees, Achilles tendons, and hips.

Ellipticals don’t allow you enough hip flexion to avoid developing hips like a crowbar.

Most people don’t need to sit on their fat a**es on bikes, either because most people, well, they sit on their fat a**es enough as it is.

In short, as I’ve noted in the past in my discussions of The Law of Repetitive Motion Part 1 and Part 2, take a small amplitude of motion and repeat it thousands of times and you’re going to wind up with some issues sooner than later.  And, to take it a step further, you’re going to get efficient at this motion – and over the course of time, burn fewer calories (especially if you’re doing steady-state cardio and not interval work).

It’s not like I haven’t made suggestions on other stuff to do, either.  Try Sprinting for Health, Rethinking Interval Training, or When Things Get Boring, Turn to Cardio Strength Training.  I also recently raved about the emphasis Chad Waterbury placed on movement on his great new fat loss program, Body of Fire.

And, if you need one more example, here was a little fun I had with an impromptu conditioning session on Sunday afternoon at Cressey Performance: Alternating Lateral Lunge Walk with Keg paired with Inchworms.

I’d already done some cable woodchops, t-push-ups, face pulls, slideboard, easy sprinting progressions, and medicine ball throws in a circuit format that day (pair up two exercises with low resistance and rotate back and forth without stopping for three minutes).  It’s not rocket science because we aren’t building rockets; people just need to move more.

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Chad Waterbury on Why Some Fat Loss Plans Fail Miserably – and Why Body of Fire is a Better Approach

Written on July 13, 2010 at 7:00 am, by Eric Cressey

Today, we’re fortunate to have an interview with Chad Waterbury.

EC:  Chad, thanks for agreeing to this interview for the site.  It’s hard to believe that EricCressey.com has been “live” since 2006, and this is the first time we’ve gotten you on-board for a feature.  Most of my readers are probably familiar with you already, but what have you been up to lately?

CW: First off, I want to say that it’s a pleasure to be here. You offer top-notch information to a wide variety of clients and that’s why I’m happy to do this interview. This is one of the few websites that I read on a regular basis.

Over the last few years, since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve gotten back to training more people one-on-one. In this town, it’s all about fat loss. People want to get lean and ripped, like, yesterday. In LA, immediate gratification isn’t fast enough. So I’ve spent time really honing my training and nutrition parameters to help people burn fat in record time.

I’ve also been working with a lot of professional fighters. There’s no greater challenge than developing a fighter because he needs to build elite levels of strength, endurance, and mobility at the same time. The cool part is that my work with fighters – and the parameters I use for burning fat – actually coalesce. Why? It’s simple: the quickest way to get a leaner, stronger body is to train more like an athlete – especially a fighter. So my challenge was to create a system to get non-athletes to experience the same results that my athletes, such as Ralek Gracie, get when training with me personally.

EC: Gracie’s rocking your “Body of FIRE” logo on his banner at the beginning of this clip; let’s talk about that.  You’ve got a new fat loss e-book out (Body of F.I.R.E.).  Besides the obvious fact that a lot of people are…well…fat, what inspired you to write it?

CW: Honestly, I was getting tired of hearing outrageous claims from trainers who’ve never transformed anyone. This industry is replete with self-proclaimed experts. Now, I’m certainly not against the idea of making money off your information, but when the sales pitch is exaggerated to the point of hysteria it becomes a little too much to stomach. It’s funny because people often associate me with methods that are solely intended to build size and strength. In reality, I have more experience with training people for fat loss than anything else.

So I took it upon myself to create a system that will transform people faster than they ever thought possible. That’s why I created my new Body of F.I.R.E. program. In my experience, nothing transforms a person quicker than an effectively designed Full-body, Intense, Resistance Exercise program – hence the acronym.

However, I didn’t want to make a program that was only for advanced athletes, so I took a lot of time tweaking the parameters so anyone can get incredible results on the program.

EC: Along those same lines, where are most people falling short on the fat loss front?  Why isn’t the status quo getting the job done?

CW: This is easy to answer. The first reason why people don’t lose fat, and keep it off, is because they don’t know how to eat to stimulate their metabolism. Most diets shut down fat burning and make people feel miserable.

The second reason is due to their training program. It’s imperative to stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible with full-body workouts while keeping the rest periods to a minimum in order to generate a large cardiovascular response.

The third component is with their progression plan, or lack thereof. The only way to make your body lose fat week after week is to make it to do work without burning out your nervous system. Building athleticism is a key to making this work.

Finally, tissue health is probably the most underrated and unappreciated aspect of body transformation. There are simple steps you can take to keep your joints healthy, and this is essential to sticking with a program. There are a lot of crazy programs out there that quickly impose an insane amount of stress on the joints. If you get injured, your fat loss endeavor immediately comes to a screeching halt.

EC: Let’s talk about the program itself.  What’s unique about it that sets it apart from other fat loss methods that may fall short?

CW: Quickly transforming your body starts with the right diet. You’ll never lose fat unless your nutrition program focuses on foods that are high in nutrients but low in calories. It’s all about food quality. You can eat an entire bag of potato chips because they contain no real nutrients. Therefore, your brain never gets the memo that your body is satisfied. However, you’d never be able to finish the same amount of calories from, say, blueberries or broccoli because your brain quickly gets the signal that your body is getting the nutrients it needs to support your metabolism. Bottom line: the only way to see your abs is to get your diet in order first.

The second component is with your training program. As I mentioned, it’s essential to train in a way that induces the largest metabolic cost that exercise can create. Tabata’s research taught us that we need to think less about the metabolic changes that are occurring during a workout and focus more on what’s happening after you leave the gym. An hour jog only burns calories while you’re doing it, plus it’s very hard on your hips, knees, and ankles. High intensity cardio, on the other hand, will stimulate your metabolism to keep burning calories long after you stop training – if you know how to do it right. Instead of running on a treadmill, focus on full-body circuits such as split jacks, jumping jacks, and burpees that are performed for multiple rounds with minimal rest.

With regard to weight training, it’s important to do three things. First, for every other workout, lift loads that are heavy enough to recruit all of your muscle fibers. Most people lose size and strength on a fat loss plan because they focus on light, high-rep weight training exercises that are performed to failure. This is a travesty because it’s not optimal for maximum muscle fiber recruitment. Focus on weights that are between a 6-12 repetition maximum, and accelerate all of your lifts. This ensures that you’re recruiting all of your muscle fibers with every rep. As the saying goes: if you don’t use it, you lose it. A full-body circuit comprised of an upper body push, an upper body pull, a lower body exercise, and a core exercise is outstanding for creating a huge metabolic cost when the rest periods are kept to a minimum.

From there, I have my clients perform “cardio strength” exercises. These are exercises that don’t require as much load as a strength circuit, but they can still recruit all of your muscle fibers when performed correctly. For example, I like to pair up the kettlebell swing with a push-up for descending reps. You’ll start with, say, 13 reps of the swing and then you’ll drop to the floor and knock out 13 push-ups. Then you’ll jump back to your feet and do 12 swings followed by 12 push-ups. Next it’s 11 swings followed by 11 push-ups. You’ll continue with this sequence until you reach one rep for each exercise. When you perform each exercise at top speed, and when you keep rest to a minimum, it’s awesome for burning fat while boosting athleticism.

The third essential component of body transformation comes from an effective progression plan. Many people stop getting results on a fat loss program after a few weeks because their parameters are stagnant. You must force your body to do more work over time. You don’t need to keep adding weight to your lifts. Instead, focus on adding a rep or set, or increase your work interval, or shorten your rest periods by five seconds with each workout. This ensures that your metabolism is constantly being challenged. In my new program, I use a combination of these progression methods in each phase.

EC: The thing I noticed right away is the dedicated focus to staying healthy with good soft tissue work and a focus on mobility and athletic movement.  It seems like a lot of fat loss programs out there are all about just making people move a ton to tire them out and burn calories – but there is rarely (if ever) a focus on the quality of movement.  Inevitably, exercise technique goes down the crapper and many folks wind up injured (in addition to being raging a**holes from caloric deprivation).  Can you speak a bit to how you attacked this aspect of the program?

CW: You’re right, Eric, getting the most out of your workouts comes from quality of movement. And getting the most out of your movements comes from having healthy joints that are in balance. Just like high quality foods are essential to boosting your metabolism, so are the exercises. I spent a lot of time developing the exercise guide in this resource by including big, high-resolution pictures along with many tips and technique guidelines to ensure that everyone is doing each exercise perfectly.

Furthermore, each workout starts with a few mobility exercises. Most people are stiffest in their ankles, hips, T-spine, and shoulders so it’s important to mobilize those areas before you start training. The good news is that it doesn’t take long – just a few minutes when you know what to do. And each workout ends with a few, key stretches for the same areas. This is great insurance to keep you on track. A program is only as good as the corrective exercises it contains to keep you from throwing your joints out of whack.

EC: Let’s talk nutrition.  What can readers expect on that front in Body of Fire?

CW: The nutrition program is as effective as it is user-friendly. The first step, as I mentioned, comes from replacing low-quality foods in your current eating plan with nutrient-dense, low-calories foods. The second step is to control insulin and add in certain, key nutrients that research has shown to have the greatest impact on increasing your metabolism. You must eat frequently, every 3-4 hours, and most people know that. But what might surprise people is that front loading your calories, where breakfast is your highest calorie meal and dinner is the lowest, is a simple way to supercharge your metabolism and burn fat. The third component comes from your workout nutrition. If you take branched-chain amino acids in the right amounts, before and after training, along with a specific post-workout feeding you’ll accelerate fat burning, recovery, and performance.

The nutrition plan, when paired with the workouts I outline in the program, produce incredible results. My client, Jon, lost over 40 pounds of fat on the program. Since he’s an athlete, he couldn’t afford to lose any size and strength. As you can see from the before and after pictures, he created what many guys might consider to be the ultimate body. I’ll concede that he shaved, tanned, and lost his shoes, but I think the rest speaks for itself.

EC: Not too shabby at all! Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions, Chad.  Where can readers find out more about the new product?

CW: Just head over to BodyofFire.com and check it out while the introductory price is still in effect. This program is unlike anything I’ve written about in any of my books or articles. I’ve never spent as much time on a project as I have on the this system. No stone has been left unturned.

Random Friday Thoughts: 5/8/09

Written on May 8, 2009 at 6:52 am, by Eric Cressey

1. It’s going to be a quick one this week, as I’m doing some last minute preparations for this weekend’s Perform Better Summit in Providence, RI.  To all the poor abandoned souls who count on my blog for companionship each Friday, I apologize for not giving our relationship the tender romance it deserves this week.

2. Congratulations to Cressey Performance athlete and Auburn High pitcher Tyler Beede, who threw a no-hitter on Wednesday.  Tyler struck out 15 in his complete game performance.

3. I contributed on the fourth installment of Mythbusters at T-Nation this week.  It also includes contributions from Chad Waterbury, Tony Gentilcore, and Christian Thibaudeau.  Noticeably absent from this esteemed crew of contributors is Mr. Celery – so I thought I’d give him some love.

4. For the foam rolling aficionados in the crowd, here’s a great variation to use for those hard-to-reach grundle adductor region.  Thanks to Tony Gentilcore for the video:

This is a really important one for those of you in the crowd with a history of groin strains and sports hernias.  Hockey players, soccer players, and powerlifters should commit this one to memory.

5. It’s official: Mike Robertson, Bill Hartman, and I are filming a new DVD on June 7th.  Lots to prepare before then!

Have a great weekend!

High Praise for Maximum Strength:

Written on July 11, 2008 at 1:23 pm, by Eric Cressey

“In Maximum Strength Eric Cressey outlines a system of scientific and user-friendly principles that will build a body that’s strong, muscular, mobile and healthy. That’s a tough combination to pull off, but this book does it. Whether you’re an athlete or weekend warrior, you need this book.”

-Chad Waterbury

Coming To a CP Near You: The Nightingale Excrement Facial

Written on January 17, 2008 at 1:09 pm, by Eric Cressey

The other day, while doing some online reading, I accidentally happened upon an article with the following introduction:

“Forget avocado, evening primrose oil or other exotic ingredients, the latest facial to hit New York is a mask made with bird excrement. The Geisha Facial, available at Shizuka New York for $180, about $100 more than the shop’s other facials, contains nightingale excrement.”

The message is that you can sell people on any kind of crap (pun intended) that you want.

Research on the repeated exposures effect in marketing shows that the more people see something (to a point of limited returns), the more they accept it as not only as fact, but as convenience – or even gospel – as well. It’s the reason so many people “Xerox” rather than photocopy – or grab a Kleenex rather than a tissue. While making some photocopies, blowing your nose, or even rubbing bird crap on your face is a far cry from lifting heavy stuff, you’d be surprised at the messages you can glean from this introduction.

If I told you in a Monday T-Nation article that my nightingale excrement protocol would add 50 pounds to your squat in two weeks, would you buy it? Probably not. But, if Christian Thibaudeau chimed in on Tuesday and said that he’d added one inch to his biceps over the course of a month by simply massaging bird poo onto his upper arms, you’d probably raise an eyebrow and read on.

Then, Mike Robertson chimes in on Wednesday to tell you that, “as demonstrated by an independent laboratory study” (which, incidentally, was funded by the American Society for the Advancement of Bird S**t), nightingale dung reduces knee pain in arthritis patients. Thursday, Chad Waterbury tells you that ten sets of three minutes of bird s**t on your face works better than three sets of ten minutes. Friday, TC admits he sniffs nightingale doo-doo to gain inspiration for each Atomic Dog column.

You’re sold.

There are no peer-reviewed studies displaying quantifiable results, or even a good amount of anecdotal, subjective evidence to support the aforementioned notions.

The point is that no matter how informed a consumer you think you are, you’re also (likely) outside your realm of expertise when it comes to exercise physiology if you haven’t made a career out of it. It’s why I go to an accountant to get my taxes done or a lawyer to have a contract drawn-up – and it’s why there are a lot of people out there obliviously getting suckered into false information that often separates them from their money.

A few years ago, I wrote a series called “Debunking Exercise Myths.” In hindsight, I probably should have called it “Stupid Stuff You Shouldn’t Believe” – especially since I’m a few years older and a bit more cynical now. These were two of my more popular articles to-date, so I thought I’d throw it out there to get some reader input: would you like to see more?

And, if so, feel free to drop us an email with your suggestions on topics to cover. You can send an email to ec@ericcressey.com with the subject line “Debunking Exercise Myths Suggestion.” I’ll either cover it in future newsletters and/or blogs, or make a new article out of it altogether.

Speaking of T-Nation

I had a new article published there yesterday; check out First Person: Cressey .

New Blog Content

And, speaking of blogs, check out some of our latest content – including two recent audio interviews with me:

EC on Superhuman Radio

Random Friday Thoughts

Maximum Strength Feedback from the Medical Community

EC on The Fitness Buff Show

All the Best,

EC