Exercise Is Not a Primary Means For Weight Loss

By: Randy Goodman, B.A. Kinesiology, Onnit Foundations Certified Coach, Health Science Academy Advanced Sports & Exercise Nutritional Advisor

Disclaimer

STOP! Before you continue, here are the obligatory disclaimers that seem to accompany anything that can be looked at as diet advice:

1. This is a post about exercise, diet and how to lose weight. I understand, for many these are the most annoying posts around, so if your ego does not allow you to accept information that contradicts the way to stuff your gaping maw or you're just not into this shit then don’t read it.

2. This is an opinion piece that is based on my own personal research and experimentation. Any advice I give on what to eat or not eat is based on books and studies I have read and personally applied to my body. I’m not a doctor or a scientist and this is not medical advice.

If you’re still here, read on my sweet child.

I Workout So I Can Eat What I Want and Not Get Fat

How’s that working out for ya, there, Big Chief? Is health's common saboteur, visceral fat, increasing in volume and smothering your beloved organs more and more year after year? If so, your approach of working out to offset your poor dietary choices isn’t working and you're not alone.

You ever hear the phrases "you can't outrun a bad diet" or "abs are made in the kitchen"? Well, research is showing that there may be some truth to those statements. Well credentialed Canadian author, Timothy Caulfield (Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy; Professor, Faculty of Law and School of Public Health; and Research Director, Health Law Institute), has gathered a pile of research in his book, “The Cure For Everything,” supporting the idea that exercise is more effective for maintaining your weight as you age rather than exercise as a primary means of weight loss. Diet undoubtedly takes the role of a primary means of weight loss. There are thousands of ways that exercise contributes to health and longevity so definitely do indulge in some deep, glorious bicep curls on the regs. Just don’t use it solely for weight loss without consideration for diet. Exercise as a primary means of weight loss is simply one of the biggest health myths out there!

Think about it. How hard is it to burn 500 calories in a short amount of time? Most people need to work out vigorously for close to an hour to accomplish that feat. Now, how many calories are in a Starbucks beverage and blueberry muffin? And, how fast do you think those calorie packed treats get in your belly, knock off one third of your recommended daily caloric intake (RDI), and spike your blood sugar and consequently, insulin which initiates fat storage? One of those things is way easier and way yummier than the other. Unless you think a one hour slog on the treadmill or a half hour HIIT session is yummy then I believe the list of folks that thinks like you is longer than the list of folks that think like me. In other words, in reality most people, for many reasons, don’t or can’t stick to a regular exercise practice, never mind one that can actually offset their current diet.

Evolutionarily Programmed to Eat Like an Asshole

Yeah, if you want to get rid of any unwanted fat, you're gonna have to harden up and face your unhealthy food addictions head on. It can be a battle because you are dealing with the same opiate receptors that drugs like heroine, morphine and oxycontin play on. Only, instead of making you high, the opiates from some “food products” make you hungry. In other words, they begin to control your behavior by calling you hither towards the cookies, ice cream and doughnuts- an evolutionary survival trait that made our hunter-gatherer ancestors eat as much as they could when they came across a rare calorie rich carbohydrate source. Just seeing the words “ice cream” and “doughnuts,” you probably want to have some right now lol! I can feel it as I spill this ink. We still have the evolutionary trait that tells us when something is sweet or rich, “EAT LOTS OF IT” because, as a hunter-gatherer, we may not come across a calorie source like that for a long time. The problem is, we barely have to get off our ass to have access to rich calorie sources in our soft new world full of treats scientifically designed to play on the chemical reactions in your brain.

In my opinion, the best way to lose weight through diet is to begin eating foods that are as close to their natural state as possible and completely give up refined simple carbs in order to stop the ridiculous, uncontrollable cravings. 

A good rule of thumb for shopping is to stick to the perimeter of the grocery store. Fill your cart with fruits, vegetables, grass-fed meats, free range eggs and foods that don't come in a package. Stick it to the man and get punk-rock about your diet by staying out of the middle isles where all the fancy food-like products are! We don’t need your packaged food, maaaaan! 

Socially Unacceptable to Eat How You Want to Eat

One major problem with doing this is looking like a complete weirdo in public gatherings. People are gonna bust your stones because you don’t eat “normal.” You’re going to have to find food choices on the menu or at social events that suit the way you eat. The way you deal with this is to harden the fuck up! If you are so sensitive that you can’t take a dig or two from your buds about not eating bread or pasta, then you may need to look into talking to a mental health professional. I’m kidding of course, but it is something you encounter and need to have a plan for. 

The way I deal with it is to stay low key and not bring any attention to how I eat. Don't preach about your diet! I stay reasonable and flexible in how I approach avoiding unhealthy foods. For example, if beef on a bun and coleslaw is the meal for a work meeting, it’s beef on a giant pile of coleslaw for me. If we’re at a restaurant and the salad I order comes with breaded chicken, I just deal with it and eat it. In the grand scheme of things, a couple pieces of breaded chicken aren’t going to derail what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m not celiac; I’m just a dude trying to keep visceral belly fat from taking me out early.

The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index (GI) compares how much a food spikes blood sugar levels compared to a standard food, which is glucose (sugar) or white bread. It uses a scale of 1-100, with the standard sugar getting a GI score of 100. Stay away from foods that are high on the GI like packaged snacks, cookies, breads, pastas, candy, etc. Simply explained, the higher a food is on the GI, the more it spikes your blood sugar. Many fruits score high on the GI, but they are packed full of fibre and other vitamins and chemicals that affect their GI load. I don’t find they affect my body like refined sugars and other high GI wheat products do. You aren’t going to get fat eating fruit, you silly goose.

If you wanna pack on pounds and go down a road of bad health and disease, then continually spike your blood sugar. Foods like refined wheat (which are what most packaged snacks contain) and foods with high refined free sugar content are extremely addictive and wreak havoc on your body by causing inflammation, fat storage and aging. After a week of not eating high glycemic foods, among other health benefits, from an aesthetics standpoint you'll feel less fluffy and your skin will literally feel thinner and closer to those rippling abs you've been hiding since your twenties.

2014- When I first began to experiment with a low GI, whole food diet. This is actually what happened after cutting out wheat products and simple sugars. My exercise didn't change. Just my diet. 

Go to Battle…For a Week or So

Remember, in the first week you will battle intense cravings, headaches, irritability and other symptoms after giving up processed carbohydrates. But, I promise you that will go away and you'll begin to become addicted to disappearing fat, decreased inflammation and arthritis pain, and an overall renewal of energy and vitality. Combined with keeping a casual eye on calories in verses calories out, keeping your diet in the bottom half of the GI allows for effortless weight loss and personal control over what you shove into your face. After a week or two staying low on the GI, you will be able to say no to desert without feeling deprived.

Experiment With Your Own Body

Challenge yourself to try giving up packaged food, wheat products and high GI foods for a week. It's hard, but you need to feel what it's like and how easy it becomes to not crush three doughnuts at the office or a bag of candy from the gas station- personal battles I’m currently winning.

2014- After a few months, I went from a swollen, inflamed, puffy guy to single digit fat percentage because of how I chose to eat. I exercised the same the whole time; HIIT of course.

Remember, don't let your education about what you should and shouldn't eat come solely from governments or large food corporations. Money, lobbying and economics influence what they tell you. One of the things "big food" and anyone they're in bed with tells the public is that you can offset your food choices by exercising regularly. "Eat the snacks and as long as you exercise you won't get fat." An obvious thing to tell people when you want them eating lots of food in order to fulfill their duty to their share holders. Pull nutrition information from a variety of sources-  pay attention to who is funding the study or article- and make up your own rational opinion about how you should eat.

Stay well and, as the kids say, stay woke!

RG

How to Build Strength That Lasts

Weight Training: Endurance

By: Randy Goodman, BA Kinesiology

In continuing on with my “weightlifting protocols explained” series, I’m going to cover endurance next. This type of training, like hypertrophy training, is implemented early on in the off-season of an athlete helping them establish an endurance base and high level of recoverability. I personally use this type of training more than any other type year round simply because I feel it is so applicable to my active lifestyle.

When we talk about weight training for endurance, what we’re really talking about is strength-endurance or muscular endurance. Strength-endurance refers to maintaining high force outputs (strength) over long periods of time (endurance) and increased subsequent recovery ability. You may have heard or seen people in the training community use the term METCON, which refers to metabolic conditioning. METCON can be used in reference to conditioning of aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (glycolytic, or without oxygen) metabolic systems. Strength-Endurance weight training protocols are very much associated with anaerobic METCON. CrossFit® athletes are very well known for strength-endurance. Their sport calls for the need to be able to do heavy lifts for long periods of time, recover quickly and move onto the next station or event. Strength-endurance training sessions that last over 30 minutes will also yield aerobic benefits.

Crossfit athletes digging deep.

Strength-Endurance is what is going to let a distance runner keep a fast pace while climbing a hill, allow a college wrestler to throw or pin an opponent near the end of a grueling round, or allow a hockey player to effectively kill a penalty and permit the athlete to recover quickly in order to continue on with the race or match without being “gassed.”

The Strength Endurance Equation = Heavy Weights + Short Rest + High Training Volume

A refresher on what the weight training variables are:

Load- Amount of weight lifted in lbs or kgs

Load Volume- Total Amount of weight lifted in a training session

Rep- Lift weight one time up and down

Set- A given number of reps done at once without a break

Duration- Estimate of set duration in seconds

Speed per rep- Tempo of one lift. Time up, time at top, time down, time at bottom of lift

Rest- Between sets and between workouts

Let’s refer to the chart and break down the variables:

How much weight should be used?

When we look at this particular chart, it calls for 40-60% or your one rep-max (RM). These numbers vary depending on which literature you read or expert you talk to, but I’ll break it down for you. Basically, what 40-60% RM is telling you is you don’t want to lift a weight that is so heavy you can only move it for a few reps, which doesn’t correlate with endurance, or a weight that is so light that the strength part of the equation goes out the window. The amount of weight you choose to lift for strength-endurance is very much determined by the length of time or number of reps you want your set to last. For example, a hockey player wants their set to last around 40-60 seconds. If we are using a squat as a hockey player’s strength-endurance exercise, they would lift an amount of weight that has them “failing” within the 40-60 second range.

Henrik Lundqvist relies heavily on strength-endurance.

How many times should the weight be lifted?

The chart says 25-60 reps per set. Again, these numbers will vary according to what you read or who you talk to. If we look at strength-endurance on a spectrum where at one end is strength (closer to 15 reps) and the other end is endurance (closer to 60 reps), we can decide according to our desired goal which part of the spectrum we want to be on. Remember, once you are reaching rep ranges of 60 or more, you begin to lose the strength component of the equation. Personally, because I’m not an athlete that needs to train for any particular sport or movement, I train all over this rep range. Some days I’m closer to the strength part of the spectrum and others I’m at the endurance part of the spectrum. The idea behind this approach is that life can throw a variety of situations at you and it’s nice to stay ready for anything.

How many sets should be done per exercise?

The chart says 2-4 sets per exercise. The key with choosing the number of sets is that you want to keep the load volume (weight x reps) for the workout in check. Do more sets if you are lifting heavier and the sets are shorter, consisting of a low number of reps. Do less sets if you are lifting lighter and the sets are longer, consisting of a high number of reps. The load volume should be similar whether you have chosen a workout that is at the strength end of the spectrum or the endurance end of the spectrum.

How long should the rest be between sets?

In a word, short! This chart says 1-2 minutes. I would say often the rest period for muscular endurance weight training will be less than 30 seconds. The short rest period is purposeful. As I mentioned earlier, we are training the anaerobic energy system. We trying to increase our ability to maintain high levels of force for significant periods of time, recover quickly, and do it again, repeatedly. You won’t always be allotted the luxury of a two + minute rest period during your game or race. Bottom line; keep your rest periods short and get to the next set before you have fully recovered. Focus on large, deep belly breaths, activating your diaphragm, during and in between sets and keep moving around during recovery periods. The goal is to get your HR to drop as much as possible and get the muscles to stop burning during your short rest period.

How fast should I lift the weight?

To me, tempo in strength-endurance is not as important as when you are training for size, where you lift the weight slow, or power, where you lift the weight fast. In training for muscular endurance, it is common to use a tempo that matches the cadence of the sport or activity you are training for. For example, a skier may need use a lift tempo to match the cadence of navigating moguls, but also do static squats, where they hold the weight in a static position, to match the long turns of a Super G.

Long static holds during Super G turns.

Mix it up by ending a set with a static hold or varying the speed of the lifts from workout to workout. To get a deep, meaningful burn I’ll often do 45 seconds to a minute of a given lift at a steady or mixed tempo and, if it is safe, end the set with a static hold until I’m shaking profusely and ultimately failing. Obviously, you don’t do this if failure means your spine or sternum is going to be crushed.

How long is each workout and how many workouts per week?

The short answer on this one is that it will vary depending on how your muscular endurance program is designed. That’s not a very helpful answer, is it? So, I’ll give you some general guidelines to get you started. Load volume is your friend for building up muscular endurance. Train each muscle group at least twice a week. If you are going to isolate one muscle group per workout, your workout length will be shorter (20-30 minutes). If you are combining muscle groups into a single workout, the workout should be longer (45-90 minutes). I’m a big proponent of doing at least one isolation workout and one full body workout per week. It’s nice to focus in on, say, legs and get really deep into the fibers of a localized group of muscles, but our bodies need to be able to move efficiently as a complete unit so I do muscular endurance workouts that have multi-joint, functional, full-body movements as well. As you become more efficient moving like a human in the way that our ancestors evolved, you inherently use less energy which contributes to how long you are able to sustain high levels of force output.

Progression in Overload

As you move through your strength-endurance program, you want to begin to manipulate the training variables I’ve outlined above. For example, in week three of your program, you want to lift more weight or do more reps in the same amount of time as week one or complete the same amount of total reps in less time. Essentially, you want to increase the training load volume from week to week so you force your body to continue to adapt to the new stressors. There are many ways to progress your overload, just make sure you're making your workouts harder and pushing to beat what you did in weeks previous.

HIIT Weight Training for Strength-Endurance

HIIT it to Win it!

Anyone that knows me knows that my love affair with HIIT (high intensity interval training) echoes that of the love affair ‘Mercans have with the Kardashians. I’m a little obsessed. When I get down with the iron, I’m most likely on a timer. The timer is my god and I must obey it. No stopping until I hear the beep. Some days it’s TABATA- 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, some days it’s two minutes on 30 seconds off. I’m past my days of being a big muscle donkey and I’m very strapped for time, so the majority of my training is now whole body functional movement, muscular endurance interval training. I feel this type of training is the most applicable to my everyday life. If I need to lift something that weighs 300 lbs, I’ll use a machine. On the other hand, I’d be able to carry an injured toddler off a mountain to safety like a champ if needed. There are several interval timer apps you can use to set up custom interval programs for yourself. An interval app and a couple sets of dumbbells- one light, one heavy- is the simplest, cheapest way to get started in muscular endurance training.

Summary

Remember the strength-endurance equation! Heavy weight + short rest + high training volume. You lift enough weight to preserve the strength component, but not so much you don’t dip into the endurance component. Take short rest periods so your body becomes efficient at recovering quickly from sustained high force output and keep your training volume high to inherit the endurance benefits of this style of weight training.

Keep in mind what you’re training for; what sport you play or activity you want to excel at. Strive for variety in the way you manipulate the weight training variables as well as the movements themselves. Use a combination of basic isolated movements and complex whole body human movements. Human movement efficiency is just as important for acquiring muscular endurance as training the energy systems.

The mental rewards are very real.

Embrace the burn, kids! Once it begins to burn, that’s when the real work begins. Dig on the pain because it lets you know you’re alive. Eventually, the endorphin high you get from grinding out a strength-endurance workout will have you addicted. Seriously, just like you can get addicted to sitting on your ass, eating chips and drinking beer, while watching others expend energy and move their bodies, you can get addicted to moving your own body. The anticipation leading up to the training session will make you giddy and amped up. The strength-endurance training session, itself, will teach you things about yourself that you won’t learn any other way. The back end of the session, when there is a puddle of sweat on the floor, will be more rewarding for your brain than anything you can stuff into your face! Trust me. If you have a physical event coming up, if you’re an athlete that is tired of gassing, or if you want to give up the meathead bodybuilder thing for a bit, give strength-endurance weight training a go.

See you under the iron!

RG

All You Need to Know About Weightlifting for Size

Weight Training: HYPERTROPHY
By: Randy Goodman, BA Kinesiology

For a couple reasons, we're going to start this weight training series by focusing on the "Hypertrophy" column of the chart. The bodybuilding protocol. First of all, this is what most people think of when they think of weight training. Going to the gym to get your swole on, bro! The other reason is in a periodized athletic program, an athlete that wants to put on muscle should do so immediately after the end of a season, as far away as possible from the next competitive season. This is due to the slow, unathletic nature of hypertrophy training and the risk of injury that is associated with attempting to perform athletic movements while muscle fibers are broken down. Basically, athletics and bodybuilding don't mix so you do your bodybuilding first before you get fast, agile and powerful.

Variables

Load- Amount of weight lifted in lbs or kgs.
Rep- Lift weight one time up and down.
Set- A given number of reps done at once without a break.
Duration- Estimate of how long a set should last.
Speed per rep- Tempo of one lift. Time up, time at top, time down, time at bottom of the lift.
Rest- Between sets and between workouts


When it comes to weight training, these are the variables that are manipulated to achieve the desired outcomes of power, max strength, hypertrophy or muscular endurance. 

Break Down Muscle Fibers

When we look at the Hypertrophy column we can see that high training volume, moderate to heavy weight, and short inter-set rest periods are associated with muscle growth. The goal is to break down the muscle fibers during the training session and allow them a full week of recovery to repair and build back up bigger and stronger.

How Much Weight to Lift

The load percentage refers to the amount of weight you lift in relation to your 1 rep max (1RM). The process of finding out how much you can lift for 1 rep is not recommended for beginners. The important thing to know is that you want to be lifting a weight with good form for 8-15 reps. No more and no less. You should "fail" within that rep range. Because you are aiming to fail (to unsuccessfully lift the weight on your own) on your final one or two reps, it is highly recommended you use a spotter. A spotter is a lifting partner that helps you safely get through your final reps in a set. Those failure reps can induce major trauma on muscle fibers and help yield the size gains you are looking for.

Single Workout Volume

Each time you lift the weight 8-15 times, you have completed one set. Perform 3 or more sets per exercise then move onto the next exercise. Perform 4-5 exercises per muscle group with 60-90 seconds rest between sets. The idea behind the short rest is that you want to hit the muscle before it's fully recovered to inflict as much trauma on the muscle fibers as possible. This is a key difference in training for size verses training for maximum strength or power. You break down the muscle fibers and when your body repairs them they are built back up bigger and stronger to adapt to the stress of the lifts.

Lifting Tempo and Types of Lifts

The "Speed per rep (% of max)" for bodybuilding is set at 60-90. To simplify this, use a count of 2 seconds up- 1 at the top- 2 down- 1 at the bottom (2-1-2-1). In other words, use a slow deliberate tempo that promotes muscle fiber demolishing time under tension.

When you’re picking exercises for a workout you want to perform 2-3 compound exercises first. Compound movements are exercises where more than one joint is moving through a range of motion (ROM), like a squat, dead lift, bench press, or shoulder press. These movements allow you to move heavier weight which is key for building muscle. You then “finish” the muscles with isolation exercises, where only one joint is moving through a ROM, that allow you to safely feel out or concentrate on the muscle fibers you are working. These include exercises like leg extensions, bicep curls and chest flys. While performing isolation exercises you should be attempting to achieve a deep mind/muscle connection, picturing the muscle fibers as they lengthen and shorten and fill with blood during each rep.

Example of a Weekly Training Split

Monday: Legs, Lower Back

Tuesday: Shoulders, Forearms

Wednesday: Back, Biceps

Thursday: Chest, Triceps

Friday: Core, Maintenance

* Abs and Calves done daily between sets. These muscles respond best to excessively high training volumes. 

Weekend: Active recovery to promote blood flow and healing.

Hugh Jackman puts on muscle for another Wolverine role.

Muscle Soreness

Approximately two days after a muscle group has been hit, you will experience DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness). This is when inflammation associated with muscular repair is at its greatest. Muscles will be very sore and will lack function during this time. DOMS is felt more with Hypertrophy training than any other form of weight training.

Build Muscle to Burn More Calories

As an added benefit, as you pack more calorie burning muscle onto your frame, it becomes much easier to stay lean. First of all, it takes energy to repair muscle after you break it down during a workout. Secondly, larger muscles use more energy throughout the day. Combined with a nutrition program, a hypertrophy weight training program is a great way to burn fat and get that lean, toned look.

Summary

Squats using the hypertrophy protocol will help you build that big round booty.

To increase the size of your muscles you want high enough volume and intensity to sufficiently break down the muscle fibers. The body then utilizes protein building blocks called amino acids to repair and upgrade the muscle fibers in an attempt to adapt to the new stimulus. This is why it's important to continue to increase the stimulus from week to week. You need to continue to increase the stimulus to promote further adaptation and growth. Rest periods between sets are short enough that you hit the muscle before it has fully recovered from the last set in order to create maximum trauma in the muscle fibers. Inter-workout rest for a given muscle group should be about a week to allow for full recovery and adaptation. It is during rest that growth occurs. At this time it is normal to feel soreness and a decrease in function, with soreness peaking about two days after the workout (DOMS). It is not recommended to perform athletic feats at this time due to risk of injury.

There you have it, once you have spent some time in the gym and know how to safely perform each lift, you can take this info and create your own hypertrophy program. This is the style of weight training that will add shape and curves to your body. Hypertrophy training isn't just for meat heads. Whether you're someone that wants to change how their body looks or an athlete that wants to put on some size, this is how you do it. You want that big booty or broad shouldered, V-shape torso? Don't want to get thrown around in the corners next hockey season? Follow this protocol and you will begin to gain lean calorie burning muscle mass within a month or so. Happy lifting!

5 Tips For Establishing a Health & Fitness Resolution For the New Year

New year, new you!...hopefully. Right? "I'm gonna get myself in shape this year!" This is one of the most, if not the most popular New Years Resolutions, and undoubtedly one of most failed resolutions year after year. Here, I give you five tips to consider when setting up your health and fitness resolution so you don't end up high in January and low when it comes to that beach wedding in Mexico in June. 

1. DON'T TAKE THE ALL-IN OR ALL-OUT APPROACH

Before you start your new health and fitness regimen step back and look at how your life is structured, who you are as a person, how your current schedule can be altered, what your finances are, and what your relationships with family and friends look like. Then put your new plans to improve your health into the mix and look at how it will affect your life. If there are too many negatives that are attached to your good intent, then it is not going to be sustainable. Neglected family will let you know in a hurry and eventually your squeezed schedule will start causing you to miss workouts. Those of us who have been successful at adding a health and fitness practice to our lives do it with a realistic approach that is flexible. We may miss a few workouts in January, but we are still at it in April!

How many times have we seen the scenario where someone comes flying out of the gate in January, eating nothing but bodybuilder chicken and broccoli, showing everyone their pile of supplements that sits in the corner on their counter, going to the gym for two hours a day 4-5 days per week and posting #fitspo selfies on their social media pages? Then you see them in March or April and they have already quit and have excuses till Tuesday about why they aren't working out any more.

They are gone by March because their approach was completely unsustainable and out of character. Of course they weren't able to keep it up! Eating food you don't like is going to make you miserable. Going to the gym for ridiculous lengths of time is stupid and doesn't fit into the schedule of most adults. Buying copious amounts of supplements is expensive and unnecessary, and posting selfies showing everybody that you are in the gym is some sort of superficial effort to legitimize physical self worth that has nothing to do with long term health, function or longevity. What do you think we have in common here? All this shit is one big setup for failure! You are sacrificing so many other aspects of your life in order to do your gym thang that it ends up not being sustainable; family, finances, enjoyment to name a few. All for what? For a month or two where your friends are impressed because you have put on a front that this is how you live your life now? Not that it matters, but show your family and friends that you've sustained your new lifestyle for all of 2017, not just January/February, and they will be impressed.

2. MAKE YOUR RESOLUTION MEASURABLE AND FLEXIBLE

"I'm going to get in shape this year." "I want to lose my beer gut." Those are all well and good but, in my opinion, they are byproducts of achieving a measurable goal rather than the goal itself. They are subjective and narrow in focus and there is nothing in those statements that says how you are going to accomplish them. "I am going to do a 300-500 calorie workout, 15 days a month" is a better goal (or resolution) to make. When you make the measurable action the resolution, you can easily quantify whether or not you are attaining it. You either did the workouts or you didn't. That being said, if you miss a workout or even a week of workouts due to unforeseen circumstances it absolutely does not mean you have failed your new goal. You have made your resolution flexible by using a large enough measurement window, a month, so you can get right back on the horse and make up for missed workouts. Remember you're playing the long game here, folks. We're trying to win more weeks than we lose over the course of our entire lives. Accept small setbacks because they don't mean shit in the long run!

The cool thing about making real actionable items the resolution is that you don't have to worry about results. "Getting in shape" will take care of itself because it is a byproduct of you accomplishing your resolution. If you add 3 hours of physical activity a week to your life and keep everything else the same, your body will be forced to adapt to that input and you, for sure, won't look or feel the same 365 days later. Hell, if you add in three 7-minute workouts per week your body will change.

3. REVISIT YOUR GOALS MONTHLY, NOT YEARLY

If you are just getting started, ease into the change you are making in your life. Maybe your goal is 11 workouts in January, 12 in February, 13 in March and so on. At the end of each month you assess the pros and cons of the amount of time you allotted to your health and fitness progress and take them into account when setting your goal for the next month. If you allotted too much time to fitness and personal relationships are suffering because you aren't spending enough time with a spouse or your children, you have an opportunity to address that and make scheduling adjustments accordingly. Either move the timing of your workouts or scale back the amount of time so your life remains well rounded and nothing suffers.

Take that initial progress picture so you always have a reference of where you started and take one monthly along with a set of notes that allow you to compare where you're at currently in relation to where you started. The notes allow you to document setbacks and things that worked well for you in that month. Program a reminder in your electronic calendar and set some time aside to take your progress picture and document some notes. During this time you also set your new micro-goals for the upcoming month. Some examples of monthly goals may be to increase hip mobility, improve shoulder posture, or even to start growing a big ol' booty.

The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday. It is very motivating to see you look and feel completely different than the person you were six months ago and a before and after is a clear way to accomplish that. It's also a great reminder that temporary setbacks don't put you back to square one. You can still see that you are miles ahead of where you were initially when you have your initial starting picture and documentation to reference.

4. FIND ACCOUNTABILITY

Whether it's a workout partner, a trainer, a spouse or a friend, find someone who is going to support you and hold you accountable for what you say you are going to do. You are waaaaaay more likely to stick to your health and fitness practice if you have support! Even the professionals use others to hold them accountable. My whole life I have had various lifting partners that I'd give permission to call me a dick if I didn't make it to a session. Now, my wife and I workout together in order to provide accountability to one another. Professional fitness models have built in accountability in that they won't get any more magazine covers if they start missing workouts. Runners won't win any more races if they don't get their roadwork in. Athletes get kicked off the team if they show up out of shape.

You may not be trying to win races or land magazine covers, but the idea is essentially the same. Your workout partner will probably find another partner if you stop showing up for them. If you're someone with pride, the shame you feel from letting somebody other than yourself down makes it that much more real and gives it some color that goes beyond the self-shame you're able to privately hide the back of your mind.

Surround yourself with like-minded folks, sign up for future competitions that you need to prepare for, join classes or groups where you see familiar faces weekly or use a personal trainer. The more ways you can find accountability the better.

5. TAKE A HUMAN HEALTH, FUNCTION, AND LONGEVITY APPROACH

This is the foundation of The Goods Method, where we practice things that are correlated with a body and mind that work well in all situations, stay disease and injury free, and last forever. The vanity stuff is a beneficial byproduct. There is nothing wrong with liking the way you look. That being said, do not enter the New Year with a goal that is oriented at building a figure that you perceive to be appealing to others. That is an unhealthy mindset and fuck what they think! Build a body that can bring you where you want to go and do what you want to do. Functional bodies and minds are sexy as fuck IMO! When you aim for function, your physiology takes care of itself. After all, it's harder to get shit done when you are hauling around 40 lbs of excess weight.

Another part of the health, function, and longevity equation I want to touch on is to be smart about how you train. I've been in the game a long time and seen it all. Guys folded and crushed by squat bars, shoulders blown out by doing Olympic lifts while fatigued, people flying off the back of treadmills, backs blown out by one too many 500 lb dead lifts. It's one thing to injure your self playing a sport or doing a challenging hiking expedition, but there is no reason to injure yourself in the gym, especially if you are just a regular guy or gal looking to improve your health.

Modern human beings and have evolved over 200,000 years (and ancestral origins over 6 million years) to move certain ways. We walk, we run, we jump, we throw, we pick shit up. You get the point, move like a damn human being! You are not a kangaroo that only hops without contra-lateral reciprocation (walking or running), you are not hoist that just lifts heavy things, you are not a monkey that just swings from things.  Each of these essentially does one thing. We, as human beings, do a variety of things. I'm not saying don't do any of those movements, but know that overuse injuries will arise if you get caught up in doing one movement pattern too much. Unless you want to end up with a blown out back or bone spurs in your elbow, you need to follow a few rules when you are trying to achieve optimal human health, function and longevity.

One, proper biomechanics and technique always come before increasing load. Two, remember your gains come during proper recovery, so seek out information on recovery protocol. Three, listen to what your body is telling you. If it hurts in a bad way, stop doing what caused the pain. Four, being under large overhead loads when you are blacking out does not correlate with long-term health. Olympic lifts, to be done in the 1-5 rep range when fully recovered, are for nervous system development, not cardiovascular conditioning. If you're training for competition purposes and need to push your limits, do it in a safe manner where slight faults in your form don't end in catastrophic results. Five, your human body works in a variety of ways, so have variety in your training. You will achieve balance in your body and avoid monotony and physical injuries by incorporating a variety of movement patterns on a variety and combination of planes. The fastest way to derail a health and fitness plan is to injure yourself, so be smart about how you train and seek professional tutelage if you don't know what you are doing.

Whether you are just getting started for the first time or looking to aim for some new goals in 2017, I hope this helps! Good luck to everyone in the New Year!

Note: This article was written and edited with input from my wonderful wife, Coach Evelyn.

Health and Fitness Excuses I've Heard and Tips on How to Avoid Being the Person That Makes Them

"We’re going to make our body great again! We’re going to build muscle. We’re going to keep the bad stuff out and let the good stuff in and it’s going to be great. We’re going to be great. We’re going to make our body great again."

- Health and Fitness Donald Trump, probably

You want some real substance? Here I take four excuses that I have heard come out of people's mouths, call them lame, and give you some applicable tips on how to not be the person making the excuses. By now we all know that living a healthy life is more of a mental game than anything. I know what it's like to think you can overcome a mental struggle only to find yourself back a square one after thinking you've got it beat. Folks, sometimes we need to find the right approach and sometimes we need to reach out to others for help. I have found help for my struggles and I am here to help others conquer theirs.

"I didn't have time to make a smoothie so I just made some toast."...LAME! That excuse doesn't even make sense. It takes 3 minutes to make a smoothie and you are mostly in control of how long it takes. With toast you are at the mercy of your crappy toaster when it comes to how long it takes. If there is any difference in the time it takes to make toast vs a smoothie, it's negligible. What isn't negligible is the nutrient value of toast vs a well-rounded smoothie. Toast, muffins, and bagels are not breakfast. They are treats to enjoy on occasion or as part of a well rounded breakfast. They are addictive, inflammatory and shouldn't be consumed every morning if you don't want to be fat. If you feel hungry two hours after your smoothie, it could either be that you're addicted to wheat products- which, when digested yield morphine-like compounds that bind to your brain's opiate receptors- or your smoothie isn't well rounded enough. Your smoothie should have enough bulk, healthy fats and protein that it should satiate you for a few hours. An example of a good morning smoothie that tastes great and will hold you over looks like this: 1 generous hand full of kale, half cup pineapple, half cup mango, 1/2 scoop Vega vanilla protein powder, 1 scoop super greens powder, 2 tbsp chia seeds, 1 heaping tbsp coconut oil, ½ cup coconut water, ½ cup orange or apple juice.

This workout can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
It all depends on the effort you put in.

"I was going to work out but I was super busy and wasn't able to."...LAME! What, you couldn't find 7 free minutes to move your body? Seven minutes! That's it! I guarantee you were on your smartphone for at least an hour during the day. I am a father of two demanding toddlers, working a full time job, contributing to household chores, and running a side business and I can find time to work out for 7 minutes. Anybody can. Give your body 7 minutes to move, pump some blood around, heat up, and lube those rickety old joints. And don’t give me the “that’s not enough time to make any difference” line. I use this workout and it DOES make a difference. If you do three 7 minute workouts a week for a year your body is going to have to adapt to that hormetic stress. Three 7 minute workouts a week for a year works out to a little over 18 hours of vigorously moving your body. You are going to change physically, but more importantly you will change mentally. You will feel loose, energetic, and it will influence every decision you make, including what you decide to put in your face. Yes, you will choose foods that make you feel good about yourself if you exercise regularly.

“My back is killing me and my knees don’t like to bend anymore.”…LAME! Your back and knees are like that because you abuse the shit out of them by not moving them. Then, when your bros are watching you'll willingly grunt that barrel of oil into the back of your pickup by yourself so you look tough even though your body isn't even close to being ready to lift a heavy object. If you don’t use your body’s full ROM on a regular basis you are going to stiffen up. MOVEMENT IS MEDICINE. The way to fix your body is to move it. Not move less, not take pills…just MOVE! Right now I’m recovering from rotator cuff surgery (it was wrecked from all the stupid stuff I did in my twenties). I can barely move my arm. It hurts to move it. But guess what, the protocol that I have been prescribed to get full ROM and get rid of any pain is MOVEMENT. I have to move my arm every way that it's supposed to move in order to become pain free and fully functional again. I’ll tell you what the doc didn’t tell me to do, “don’t move it anymore and sit around eating cheesypoofs because you said it’s stiff and sore.” So move often, and move in a variety of ways under your own body weight as well as under load in a controlled environment. Use active (your muscles change related joint angles) and passive (keep muscles relaxed and use external source to change joint angles) techniques to move your body. Doing the 7 minute workout I mentioned above a few days a week goes a long way towards battling body pain and arthritis. I know this from experience.

Don't cripple yourself because you like treats.

"Well, I've been eating like shit and I haven't worked out in two weeks so I might as well just keep that going."...LAME! With this kind of thinking you are asking for a diseased retirement. When you take that kind of narrowed perspective and you allow two weeks to become so significant that it overshadows what should be a life-long practice, you're automatically set up for failure. Here's an analogy for you. Think of a sniper looking through a scope. He can only see one small portion of the big picture. When the sniper takes the shot at the target in his scope of vision he either knocks the target down or the target flees. Either way, if he just called it a day after one shot and didn't step back to regroup and focus on a new target he would be considered a terrible sniper. He wouldn't be very effective at contributing to the cause he's fighting for. That sniper's activities need to be guided by a wider perspective. He needs to take into account that the war he is fighting goes far beyond what is in his scope of vision. In the same way, you can't work out in January (knock down a scoped target) and quit in mid-February (target flees) and just hang’em up because the target no longer exists in your narrow scope of vision. You would never accomplish your ultimate goal of health, function and longevity. No, you step back and look at things from a broader perspective and refocus on the target you missed the first time or another target you want to knock down. In other words, your lifespan is the full war mission and map. You always revert back to the full map and mission objective where things are happening on a grander scale and then focus in on a target. That can be a short term goal like a race you want to run or a specific body composition you wish to achieve. Whether or not you succeed at knocking down that target, you revert back to the full map and continue focusing in on smaller missions that are going to help you achieve your ultimate goal of lifelong function and longevity.  You pick them off one at a time. At the end of each year you will have missed a handful of targets but you should have taken down a whole lot of them and developed a pile of successful strategies and tactics you take into the next year. If you eat crappy and don't work out for two weeks, you regroup and get the ball rolling again by consuming a few good smoothies and doing a few 7 minute workouts. You focus in on a small mission and use tactics that have proven to work for you. The bikini bod you want for vacation will always be there if your mission objective is lifelong health, function and longevity.

Stay healthy and functional so your senior years aren't a
 burden on you and your loved ones.

No more excuses for not striving towards health and function. If not for you, do it for your family and friends. Don’t end up crippled by your own actions. If you like eating snacks and drinking beer while watching other people move their bodies there are going to be consequences for doing that on a daily basis. Consequences will either come in the form of obesity and disease or a greater need for you to make sure you are getting exercise and eating nutrient dense foods when you aren't watching sports in order to mitigate the obesity and disease. Be aware of that and choose the latter. There are no free rides when it comes to gluttonous activities. If you like sports so much, then get out and play some. You shouldn’t be hobbling, obese and diseased by the time you are 50. I believe you should be able to enjoy quality time with your kids well into their adulthood and well into your senior years.  Just focus on what you have control over and practice things that contribute to function and longevity over the course of your entire life.

Do you even Beast Mode, Brah? My Top Five Spartan Beast Tips for Noobs.

Those of you who I’ve pissed off or annoyed enough to want me to have keeled over and died on the side of Sun Peaks are going to have to wait until I find some other “fun” activity that 99% of the population thinks is “stupid.” Accompanied by my lovely support staff, Coach Evelyn, I drove my sorry ass out to Sun Peaks and completely surpassed any expectation of what kind of effort I’d be able to put forth in a 24 + km, 34 obstacle race on a ski hill and I completed the race in under 3 hours and 47 minutes.  Not only that, I managed to maneuver my pile of meat and bones through the unforgiving course injury free!

Now that I’m done (for now) fulfilling the competitive urges that boiled to the surface after having children, focusing on my career and rehabbing debilitating injuries, I’m ready to return to practicing fitness and nutrition more in the vane of health and longevity rather than performance. I plan on steering away from the kind and amount of workouts that cause excessive oxidative stress and get back to enjoyable short workouts that optimize my chances of staying disease free and living forever. Coach Evelyn has giant stack of custom workouts that I’ve got my eye on at the moment, so I think I’ll delve into those over the next little while. I hear good things about them.

 

So how did a big 200 lb buffoon like me manage to haul his bulbous ass, at a sub-four hour pace, around a course like the Sun Peaks Beast and bounce back feeling like he just did a heavy leg day a couple days ago? Here are my top five tips on how to conquer a Beast and not feel like a bag of dicks during or after the race:

 

1.       Have an established health and fitness practice. These are your day-to-day habits that you have formed over the course of months and even years. This is your foundation and it’s what all of your race preparation is based on. If you don’t have big biceps and eat 300 grams of protein a day, you aren’t going to be able to run a Spartan Beast! Wait, that’s my tip for picking up chicks at the beach like a boss. My day-to-day practice (not my performance practice) includes a high variety, plant-biased diet that that works for my body and a physical practice that develops my strength, power, cardio, balance, mobility and mind. Remember, this is a practice, not an end goal. Your practice is there to allow you to not only be as functional, long-lasting and disease free as possible, but to also put you in a position to reach goals you establish throughout your lifetime. Keep your practice variable, fun and sustainable! Eating the same foods and working out “till the blackness” every day isn’t a sustainable practice. We are looking for adventure, variety and enjoyment, not burnout and monotony when it comes to adopting a proactive health practice.

In the pain cave! My calf was cramping on an over/under log obstacle.

2.       Prepare yourself mentally and physically. This is such an obvious thing to say, but these races are going to mess with you. They are going to beat you down, scrape the shit out of your luscious skin, freeze your nips off and blister the feet you keep so cozy in your $200 loafers everybody at the office makes fun of behind your back. Precisely the reasons why we sign up for these events! We want to interact with some real-as-it-gets shit that makes us feel alive!

You are going to have to put yourself through a 6-8 week camp that is structured to beat you down, recover stronger, beat you down again and so on until you reach a crescendo of a bulletproof you that you step to the starting line with. Most strength and conditioning coaches agree that six weeks is a minimum starting point where you start to see real physiological adaptation to a training protocol. Start pounding pavement and get your ass over to your local Crossfit and let the coaches coax you into sweaty state of black-out a couple times a week. The workout I used to accomplish this is my own version of a hurricane workout (10 sets that consist of a 30 second max effort incline sprint followed by two 12 rep compound lifts). When you are out in the elements on the course grinding away, your muscles are going to rebel and cramp, your lungs are going to leave a taste of blood in your mouth and your vision is going to blacken around the edges. It is best you go through that in a controlled environment and learn to adapt to it so it doesn’t happen so readily on the course. I'm nowhere near considered a runner and I didn’t run more than 10 km at a time during training due to the time constraints of being a Dad, but be able to sustain locomotion for long periods of time and make sure your work that grip strength because it comes in real handy (cheesy pun intended) during OCR. Find ways to train that mimic obstacles you are going to face. There are 5 km OCRs almost every weekend during the summer, so grab some friends on get out for a “Spartan Spa” treatment once or twice to get a little taste of what OCR is all about. If you skip your race specific preparation and you attempt a Spartan Beast, your 4-6 hour race can easily turn into an 8-12 hour experience and, unless you planned on doing an OCR for that long, you are going to be one miserable little mud monster!

3.       Get your nutrition on point. Two words: whole foods. Don’t even take your grocery cart down the middle isles of the store. Stick to the perimeter and fill your cart with plants and dead animals that haven’t be fucked with. You get what the difference is between and leaf of kale and a “gluten free” bag of veggie chips is, right? Yeah, more of the former and less of the latter is what we’re going for here. Get yourself a good blender and start pouring copious amounts of blended plants down your gullet. A good spice rack and some dope recipes can really make a nutritious, whole food diet sustainable and enjoyable. Coach Evelyn is starting to become quite the whole foods chef, so I get some killer healthy meals these days. Everything you put in your body is to fuel your next workout or recover from the one you just did. Pizza Pops do not accomplish this even though they are delicious and make me nostalgic. Fluid intake should almost double when you are training for performance. Another reason why smoothies are so rad is that they contribute to your fluid intake. Your dopamine hits come from crushing burpees now, not buckets of ice cream!

In the three days before the race, when you have tapered back your training, this is your time to not worry about your sexy figure and pack glycogen (energy storage molecules) into your muscles. Basically, you’re going to eat your balls off during this time. Low glycemic index (GI) carbs should be consumed liberally at a ratio of 4:1 with protein. If you aren’t drinking at least 4 liters of water a day at this time, you’re missing the boat. Geek tip number one; the day before the race a five minute, high intensity workout has been shown in studies to allow more muscle glycogen to be stored, so get up and get moving before you start eating.

In race nutrition is not something you want to overlook. Your body is going to cramp, you are going to run out of energy and you can become severely dehydrated if you go out there without proper hydration and nutrition. I know some people can do these races without bringing nutrition because they are gritty as eff, but I also watched several people fall, writhing in agony on the side of the mountain because their muscles were involuntarily spasming and balling up from not being fueled properly. The research shows to optimize performance for events lasting longer than an hour (provided you aren’t a fat adapted athlete), you should be taking in simple sugars about every 45 minutes or so. Hammer or Clif gels will do the trick. Muscles will begin to spasm when pushing them to repeat high demand movements for hours on end. You want them cooperating with your nervous system as efficiently as possible. In your hydration pack you should be carrying an electrolyte mixture that is going to help you regulate intracellular hydration and keep your synapses firing efficiently. My second geek tip for you is if it’s too late and your calf or hammy is cramping, you can release the cramp by simply tasting salt. Crack open a high quality salt tab and put it under your tongue then rinse it out.

After the race, you won’t have much of an appetite, but it’s paramount that you get some food back in you to start your recovery and prevent injuries in the coming days. A ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein is ideal for replenishing glycogen stores and promoting tissue repair. My brother managed to have a pizza lined up for him at the finish line while I opted for fruit and milk.

4.       Geek out on gear. Get on the Google box and see what people are using for gear when they run a Spartan Beast. At a minimum you will need to find some compression gear (I wear full body compression), anti-chafe stick or rub, a hydration pack, merino wool or synthetic socks (no cotton!), trail runners with good drainage and grippy gloves if it’s cold out. I recently switched up my trail runners and tried a new minimalist hydration pack so look out for my reviews on those products in the near future.

Your choice of gear has the ability to make or break your race. A big part of your experience is going to be related to how comfortable you are on the course. One blister, rash or cut could completely occupy your mind and make life a living hell. So lube up those tootsies, pits, and gouch with anti-chafe and choose high-end gear that you have gotten used to by using it during training.

Me and my bro with our first green medal. It hurts so good!

5.       Have a support staff and get in touch with the online OCR community. My support was my amazing wife, Coach Evelyn. Preparing properly for an event like this can become a selfish endeavor and it’s going to take up a good chunk of your time and energy. Queue awesome, wonderful wife! She picked up slack with the kids, she prepped nutrient dense meals and she put up with me when I was grumpy and tired from training. Surround yourself with people that are going to have a positive impact on the outcome of your OCR success.When I got word that my younger, Crossfit kid, brother was going to run the race with me I got a huge mental boost. I was able to push harder during my last two weeks of workouts and on the course he definitely pushed me, especially on the way up the mountain. 

 

      If you got’em, use your kids as motivation to push through any adversity that you face in training and on the course. If you’re anything like me, you feel like a damn freight train when you think about your kids. My pain tolerance goes up and my willingness to quit goes down. Must be some sort of instinctual monkey genetics left in me or something.

 

Finally, the OCR community is growing at a rapid pace. There are online websites and courses, like Obstacle Dominator, on how to do each obstacle. The Spartan Race website has training and nutrition tips and most of the athletes, pro and amateur, are on social media spreading the mud-bro propaganda. Take advantage of it because you’re going to learn a crap load and it just gets you jacked up about OCR!

 

There you have it! My two cents on how to feel good going into, competing in, and coming out the ass end of your first Spartan Beast. Remember, you don't have to be a top level athlete to challenge yourself with something like this. You just have to have it in your mind that you can do it and then embrace the grind. I guarantee when you cross your first OCR finish line you are going to be hooked. I know it's got me! Hope to see some of you freaks out there next summer!