You are going to love this!

Every Christmas my mother makes these Coconut Snowball Cookies…and they are so good they disappear faster than real snowballs in July…

But they are still full of sugar and fat which is not good if you want to look lean and mean for summer.

This is no April Fool’s joke, these are HEALTHY COOKIES!

Check em out in the video below for the Peanut Butter Protein Cookie Recipe…

(sorry for the camera work, the tripod dropped down on me cutting off my head which I am sure is the only reason why you want to see the video, lol)

Leave a Comment

I have been busy interviewing a lot of the top fitness experts lately for an upcoming Dad Fitness “secret” project that I am sure you guys are going to love!

Stay tuned for this in the coming months…

In the meantime, here is a quick Q & A I did with one of the top strength and conditioning coaches in the world, Jason Feruggia of Renegade Gym in New Jersey. Jason is also the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness magazine if he sounds familiar.

As an “old school lifter” myself who thinks basics are best when it comes to working out I relate to Jason’s no B.S. approach to getting maximum results in minimum time.

Interview with Jason Feruggia:

[Sean] Most guys are being told to follow bodybuilding splits, train multiple times a day, and other non-sense training tactics that don’t work. What tips do you have for people looking to build muscle as fast as possible?

[Jason] The key to making consistent size gains is making consistent strength gains (in a hypertrophy rep range) while eating enough food and allowing enough time for recovery. You need to constantly be doing more weight or more reps. The body will respond to any given stimulus one time and one time only. If you place the same demands on it a second time (like pressing the same weight for the same reps) nothing will happen. You must always be forcing it to adapt and thus you must always ask it do something it isn’t used to.

The easiest way to do this is add more weight or do more reps with the same weight.

Aside from making consistent strength gains the next most important thing to consider is training frequency. To improve anything in life you need to do it frequently. Building muscle is no different. So you want to train a muscle as frequently as possible, while it is in a fresh and recovered state. This means that you should be training each body part once every 2-5 days, and not once a week like a lot of the muscle mags recommend. That’s too little frequency. The more times you can stimulate growth throughout the year the better. Obviously 104 growth stimulating workouts per year for each body part would be a lot better than 52.

[Sean] I have seen the phrase “stimulate, don’t annihilate” on your blog in reference to training. Can you explain what you mean by this and the relation to training volume?

[Jason] To elicit a training response you need to present the body with a stimulus that it isn’t used to. This stress will cause the body to adapt. The body adapts by building itself up bigger and stronger.

Where people go wrong is that they think they need to annihilate the muscle in order to elicit any type of response. This is completely counterproductive.

When you annihilate the muscle with tons of sets and reps and intensity techniques like drop sets you drastically increase your recovery time. And as I mentioned previously, frequency is very important. So when you increase your recovery time you have to decrease your training time. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.

The key is to do just enough to stimulate size and strength gains but not annihilate yourself so that it takes forever to recover, or worse- that you put yourself in a state of overtraining.

[Sean] Triple Threat Muscle is your new program. What separates this program from all the others and can you tell our readers why you created it?

[Jason] My Muscle Gaining Secrets program is specifically geared toward skinny guys, hardgainers and beginners. This is more of an intermediate/advanced program that is more athletically based. So while the main focus is still on building muscle there is also a shift toward a bit more speed work, mobility and conditioning in Triple Threat Muscle.
The new program was created for the typical weekend warrior or Average Joe who wants to look and train like an athlete but doesn’t actually have the time or recovery ability to spend more than a few hours per week in the gym.

I spent the last two years experimenting on a wide group of individuals to come up with the most effective and fastest way to do this. Triple Threat Muscle is the result of two years of hard work and is based on all of my findings.

[Sean] And finally, what general tips can you give to busy dads who want to transform their bodies?

1. Strength train 3-4 days per week.

2. Lift heavy and keep most of your sets in the range of 3-10 reps.

3. Don’t go to failure.

4. Train each body part 2-3 times per week.

5. Don’t do more than 12-16 total sets per workout.

6. Always strive to get stronger.

7. Eat natural, organic foods and avoid anything processed.

8. Sleep 8-10 hours per day.

9. Minimize stress.

10. Get out in the fresh air and sun more often.

Leave a Comment

Here is a super quick smoothie recipe that is great anytime of the day as either a meal replacement or a healthy snack. Well, the only time it’s not great is when trying to use the blender really early in the morning when your family is still sleeping…trust me on that one!

This super smoothie is packed full of cancer fighting antioxidants, muscle building protein, complex carbs, filling fiber and heart-healthy fats to give you lots of energy to get through work AND your Dad Fitness workouts.

It is also cheap to make and you know it only includes the healthy ingredients YOU add, unlike Joe bodybuilder behind the counter with all the powders and potions making smoothies at your local gym…

DISCLAIMER: This smoothie has a secret muscle building ingredient that will give you huge arms like Popeye!

The anchor tattoos on the other hand is your decision…

Give this one a try and let me know how you like it by posting a comment below!

Leave a Comment

Sorry for you basketball fans but this post isn’t about this year’s NCAA basketball tournament.

Personally my interest in basketball fizzled out when Jordan retired and I realized I wouldn’t grow past 5’8…

But March Madness for my family also means trying to balance a little too much not-so-healthy-things like too much Birthday cake, ( as my sister’s birthday is March 6th, a close friends, March 8th and my mother’s March 11th) with some healthier outdoor activities and fresh winter air…

March is also the nicest month of the winter here in Labrador where you can actually get out and enjoy the sun and the snow without losing the feeling in your fingers.  So we try to up our outdoor activity level wether it’s snowshoeing or snowmobiling…

This time of year makes for perfect snowmobiling weather and thankfully I just got my snowmobile repaired…again.

Where else can you get a tan while sitting a top a frozen lake full of 4 feet of ice!

Plus, you will be thankful for doing your Dad Fitness workouts and all those Deadlifts all winter when you’re snowmobile get’s stuck in 5 feet of snow!

With our daughter Matea turning the big 2 in May she is getting to be the perfect age to enjoy more outdoor activities.

So yesterday seemed like a perfect day for the annual Barker’s Boilup.

My wife got off work early and picked up Matea from the sitter’s and along with my parents we headed up on a nearby lake to light a bonfire and roast some wieners and marshmallows.

I decided not to bring my own pot of Chili this year due to last year’s “Chili Incident” which you can read about here…

But I did cook some canned chili directly over the fire. How’s that for a Manly Meal?

That was as healthy as the dining got as we also stuffed our faces with anything else that can be roasted on a stick.

Matea had a blast running around in the snow and feeding the Grey Jays and we all enjoyed the hint of spring that the sun had to offer.

I even came up with a winter workout of my own to burn off all those hot dogs and pushed Matea around the lake in her sleigh.

With the clear blue sky hanging on for that extra hour we packed up and headed home after a great day of SUN, FUN and FAMILY.

How unhealthy can that really be?

Let me know how YOU define healthy by leaving a comment below…

Leave a Comment

FACT:

A lot of gym rats might be able to load up the bar with hundreds of pounds for endless sets of the bench press but can’t even do 10 correct push ups…

I don’t think you have any business bench pressing if you can’t properly perform 20 perfect pushups.

If you can’t handle your own bodyweight, how functional is it to lie down on a bench and press additional weight?

Don’t get me wrong, the basic barbell bench press is a great upper body exercise for building muscle, but it’s depended on WAY too much to build a strong chest and shoulders.

Most people consider Pushups and Bench Presses both chest dominant exercises. But there is a big difference between the two…

The bench press is an open chain exercise and the pushup is a closed chain exercise.

The “chain” just refers to the kinetic chain of your body, which simply means that all of your body’s muscles are inter-connected in a “chain” and therefore the movements you make are also part of a that kinetic chain.

Open chain exercises allow your feet or hands to move freely like in a bench press, dumbbell curl or leg curl.

Closed chain exercises keep your feet or hands in a fixed position like on the ground during pushups or squats and even chinups.

Closed chain exercises are safer and more effective for real world functional strength because they allow your bodyweight to move through space in a full range of motion while distributing muscular stress through many muscles instead of isolating and stressing single muscles.

A big reason why so many bench press addicts develop shoulder problems is because of not the shoulders directly but due to the lack of movement in your upper back when pinned to a bench during bench presses.

The muscles in your upper back surrounding your shoulders blades and scapula play a crucial role in stabilizing and allowing movement of your shoulder girdle during pressing movements.

Pushups eliminates this problem by allowing your upper back to contract in a full range of motion when you lower yourself to the ground.

Plus for busy dads bodyweight exercises are great because they can be done anywhere without any equipment!

(here is my favorite pressing exercise)

So if you want to incorporate a simple but intense pushup workout into your workout routine give the 100 rep pushup workout a try.

Once or twice a week at the end of your regular workout aim for performing 100 pushups and time yourself to see how long it takes you.

Do as many reps as you can and do however many sets it takes you to reach 100.

For example if you can do 20 pushups at one time before failure start with 20 but as you fatigue you will probably drop down to sets of 10. You will obviously need more rest between sets as you get closer to 100.

Take as much rest as you need to get at least 10 reps for each set until you reach the 100 rep mark.

Most guys in pretty good shape will be able to complete 100 reps anywhere between 5-10 minutes.

Don’t worry how long it takes you. Just record your time and push hard to beat it the next time around.

Before you know it you will join the pushup century club and have the perfect pecs to prove it!

Perfect Pushups Tips

*Keep your abs braced tight and your hips in line with your body.

*Tuck your chin in like a “double chin” and look straight down at the floor to form a straight line from your head to your toes.

*Push your elbows and upper arms back in a 45 degree direction opposed to straight out to your sides.

PS. Be sure to check out my training article in the April/May issue of Inside Fitness magazine!

Leave a Comment