With March just around the corner, I hear a lot of men at the gym talking about getting in shape for a trip down south to soak up some sun and escape our Canadian winter.
Many say their goal is to “get in shape” before their trip or to simply “lose some weight”
But most of these people are already doomed from the start because of how they setup their goals….
I remember meeting Dr. John Berardi (creator of Precision Nutrition) in Toronto a few years back and asking him what he thinks is the BIGGEST weight loss mistake people make?
Surprisingly, it wasn’t about protein, carbs or fat. Or even specific workouts.
It comes WAY before any of that he said…
The BIGGEST weight loss-mistake people make is in setting goals.
Don’t get me wrong, setting goals are good, but most people have it all WRONG! They don’t know the difference between a behavior goal and an outcome based goal…
Understanding this is a big eye-opener for a lot of people and it’s CRUCIAL for achieving your health and fitness goals.
A behavior goal is based on something you can directly control and do yourself; an outcome goal is based on the end product of a series of behaviors.
Most people set only outcome goals, such as the following:
* “I will lose ten pounds in ten weeks.”
* “I will bench press 250lbs this summer”
While these goals are specific and measurable and may be challenging and attainable, one problem is this: they’re outcomes. And outcomes are often beyond your control.
After all, you can’t control your fat cells and their rate of fat metabolism by just hoping they’ll shrink. And you can’t defy gravity by making 250lbs feel like 150lbs. What you can control, however, are your behaviors.
So how can you pick better goals, goals based on behaviors? Try these on for size:
Want to lose ten pounds in ten weeks? Then start by understanding what behaviors you can adopt immediately that’ll lead to this result. Make these your goals. Here are a few examples:
- I will exercise for at least 3 hours per week.
- I will eat three to five meals each day.
- I will eat vegetables with every meal.
- I will avoid alcohol this week
Hope this helps you take the actions you need to get the results you want.
Precision Nutrition is the only nutrition system I personally use and recommend to my clients to get lean and healthy once and for all because it works in the real-world…and it’s currently 33% off for TODAY ONLY!
Don’t procrastinate, don’t hesitate. Just take action. You can build the body you never thought you could have – if you make the choice to begin right now.
The Precision Nutrition System <==Try it Risk-Free for 45 Days
Everyone wants TIGHT lean abs…and
Everyone wants to eat CHOCOLATE…especially today
(except our little daughter Matea who wanted her heart shaped candy lolipop for breakfast!)
But you can have your chocolate and abs too…here’s how…
I usually have a piece of 90% dark chocolate for a healthy dessert 3-4 days a week after supper with a glass of blueberry wine or a cup of peppermint tea.
As for the abs, you are luck, cause it’s Ballantyne’s Day!
Everyone’s favorite holiday, right? Exactly.
That means a big Ballantyne’s Day SALE is necessary, and fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is giving you huge savings on one of his best products…
…so for the next 3 days you’ll get access to the complete 12-Week TT for Abs DVD follow-along workout program, PLUS all of the bonus DVDs & manuals for only $97. That’s $200 off the regular price.
And not only that, but you get free shipping ANYWHERE in the world!
Here’s what you’ll receive shipped right to your doorstep:
1) Full body metabolic resistance training workouts for fat loss
2) The scientifically proven best abdominal exercises
3) The Simple Nutrition Fat Loss manual & DVD (filmed in my kitchen!)
Here’s the link to save over $200 off the TT for Abs DVDs:
=>http://www.TTWorkoutDvds.com
But the sale ends on Wednesday of this week.
And here’s what you won’t get: Useless exercises like crunches or dangerous situps or rotational exercises.
As Men’s Health magazine recently reported, your abs are designed to resist motion, not create it. Therefore, you MUST avoid bending or twisting your spine. That means eliminating crunches, situps, and russian twists for good. That’s why those exercises are not in the TT For Abs DVDs.
Here’s the link to save over $200 off the TT for Abs DVDs:
=> http://www.TTWorkoutDvds.com
And of course, you have Craig Ballantyne’s Canadian-Strength, Gold-Medal guarantee that you’ll love these workouts.
If you don’t, just send Craig an email and he’ll refund your $97 investment immediately.
Looking forward to hearing about your improved ab workouts.
Get ready to workout with Craig in the comfort of your own home,
PS. Hope you have a great VALENTINES Day with whoever you wish to spend it with. I am taking my wife out to dinner, then we are going to see The Goo Goo Dolls perform live here in town!
Enjoy your abs AND chocolate!
=> http://www.TTWorkoutDvds.com
Hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed Super Sunday.
I am not much of a football fan so my game of choice was watching the Pens vs Caps hockey game. The outcome wasn’t in the Pens favor though…
But I did enjoy the Greek Pita Pocket Pizzas I made for some gameday grub.
I am “flying solo” all week as my two favorite girls (wife and daughter;-) is gone back home to visit my parents…
But I can’t wait to use two of my favorite new training tools at the the gym this week!
One improves posture and balance and the other will increase grip strength and blow up your arms like you wouldn’t believe!
Check out these two cool training tools that I use and that I highly recommend for bigger muscles and better workouts.
*These might be considered “weird” and might get a few looks but the results will be well worth it…
1. Vibram Five Fingers
For the last 2 years I have been training in Nike Free shoes. These have a flat sole that brings you closer to training in a barefoot. Again the future of fitness is in the past as more and more research shows that wearing jacked up highly padded running shoes throws our bodies out of alignment and conditions us to land on our heels when we run, when naturally running barefoot we should be landing on the middle ball of our foot which acts like a cushioning spring.
From the huge shoe companies who make billions selling us “running shoes” to the world’s top Universities like Harvard, they are realizing the benefits of simulating barefoot running. The only problem left with this recommendation was the actual “barefoot” part which can be hazardous if you’re running in the great outdoors.
Enter the Vibram Five Finger “shoes” which is like a glove for your feet. These give you the benefits and allow the natural movement of barefoot movement without the dangers of treading over broken beer bottles in the park. Just imagine you wore gloves on your hands all the time, how desensitized your sense of touch would be. Just like your hands your feet are made up of many muscles and nerves that need stimulation to keep you strong and balanced
Wearing these almost eliminates most people’s back, knee and hip pain almost overnight, as it allows you to have a more natural heel-strike when you walk, run or workout.
I love how in tune they make me feel while training by giving me a stronger and more balanced feel, especially during exercises like deadlifts or squats when your heels are your anchor to the floor, something spongy running shoes just can’t do…
To find out more about this cool training tool visit www.VibramFiveFingers.com and see what they are all about.
2. Fat Gripz
What guy doesn’t want to build bigger biceps and strong ripped forearms? Well this cool training tool, will allow you to do that within seconds!
Based on the idea of “thick bar” training that increases your grip and arm strength by increasing the diameter of the bar. Fat Gripz takes this strongman idea and makes it practical for every gym goer with these high quality foam-like bar sleeves that slides on any barbell or dumbbell doubling the thickness and giving you the arm workout of your life!
Not just limited to specific arm exercises Fat Gripz can be used for any exercise involving bars or dumbbells for an instant increase in arm and grip strength. Just don’t expect to use the same weights as you would without as your forearms will be fighting for their life to hold on.
For more info on Fat Gripz check out www.FatGripz.com
With all the infomercial fitness fads that promises a smaller waist but leaves you with nothing but a smaller wallet, thinner feet and thicker bars are the two newest evolutions in fitness that are the real deal and will give you bigger muscles and better workouts. Now give them a try and let me know how cool they are…
With the popularity of The WeekEND Workout article I wrote a few years back I thought I would switch gears and fit our workouts into most of our work-weeks, so we could be more productive during the week and have the weekend to kickback with our family.
For a lot of us busy dads trying to stay fit it’s not that we can’t find time to squeeze in 3 or 4 workouts during the week but it’s trying to string together a consecutive hour or two during the work day to complete our workout.
Because let’s face it, most serious workouts usually take an hour to complete after you factor in a proper warmup, a few warmup sets for each exercise and then some cooldown stretching. Then if you prefer to train at a gym, you have to tack on time for commuting and hitting the showers.
But if you’re like me you love how better you feel on the days you DO workout; before, during and after, so recently I bumped my training up from 3 days a week to 4 but cut my workouts almost in half by hacking away the time wasters and focusing on just ONE lift a day during my workout. This took my workouts from 60 minutes to 30 minutes including warmup and cooldown; something you shouldn’t cut out of your workout.
By reducing the QUANTITY in your workouts you have to make up for it in QUALITY so the peck deck or bicep curl machine will not count as a lift in this program. You need to pick the big multi muscle movers, like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, standing overhead presses, chinups, pullups, and dips.
There is a reason why powerlifters and olympic lifters stick with these basic pushing and pulling exercises, because they make you bigger and stronger faster than “feeling the burn” on the leg curl machine.
Just knowing you have only ONE lift to do allows you to train more often, even up to 5 days a week if you prefer, and gives you laser like focus to follow the proven muscle building method of progressive overload by gradually breaking personal lifting records each and every week and adding a fews extra pounds to the bar or pushing out an extra rep.
So here is the One Lift a Day Template to build maximum muscle in minimum time. By sticking to the “3-5″ formula you get the results you want with the flexibility to fit any man’s schedule.
Choose one main lift 3-5 days during the work week, hit it hard for 3-5 reps of 3-5 sets and get on with your day knowing that no muscle will be left behind by the end of the week.
If you want to focus more on getting stronger in specific exercises stick with the same lift choices for 4 weeks. If strictly building bigger muscles is more your goal, choose a different exercise lift each week.
Monday- Standing Barbell or Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Tuesday- Barbell Deadlifts or Dumbbell Deadlifts, or *Chinups
*Wednesday OFF or – Chinups or Pullups
Thursday- Barbell Bench Press or Dumbbell Bench Press (flat, incline or decline) or Dips
Friday- Barbell Back Squat or Front Squat or Box Squat
*For a 4 day split you can choose chinups as a main lift on Day 2 or for a 5 day split choose only chinups or pullups on Day 5
But wait! No curls or crunches?
Don’t let the simplicity fool you, chinups and deadlifts will give you brawny biceps and forearms and standing overhead presses and squats will strengthen and stabilize your abs better than rolling around on the dirty gym floor.
So don’t worry about being a weekend warrior and keep your work and workouts for the workweek so you have the weekends to rest and recover with your family.
Because being a strong dad means more than just lifting weights…
Hope the holidays are treating you well.
I just finished making a ginger bread house with my daughter while my wife decorates the Christmas tree.
Last night I put up lights on the house Clark Griswold style!
But all the snow we had here in New Brunswick disappeared over night thanks to heavy rain. Hoping we get some back for the big day…
With all that’s going on this time of year I like to keep things simple with my workouts and after moving with just a couple weeks to get back to my workouts before the holidays I like to ditch the complicated program design and go with my “Simple Man’s Workout System”. Plus I am not running on all cylinders with this flu that’s slowing me down…so I will probably keep my training on cruise control until the New Year.
No specified rest periods, no fancy exercises, just plain old liftin’ designed in way that is easy to follow and requires only 3 hours a week.
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness as it’s all about QUALITY over quantity…
2-3 sets, 4-8 reps
Day 1, Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Flat BB Bench Press
Incline DB Press
Standing BB Shoulder Press
Side DB Raise
Lying EZ Tricep Extensions
Cable Tricep Pushdowns
Day 2, Legs and Abs
BB Back Squats
DB Lunges
DB Romanian Deadlifts
Standing Calf Raise
Hanging Leg Raise
Day 3, Back and Biceps
Deadlifts
Chinups
One Arm DB Rows
BB Curls
DB Curls
DB Shrugs
Use this workout system as your “standby” workout when you just want a simple program that gives you complex results!
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