28-Day Beach Blitz Part 5 of 5: Weight Training and Cardio
Written on 9 May 2007 by Marty GallagherComplimentary Weight Training: Fast & Light
Picking a weight program to compliment a diet is like picking the perfect wine for a gourmet meal. The ideal progressive resistance training approach to compliment our 28-day, all-out diet assault could be summarized as follows: quick pace, slow rep speed, lift infrequently but lift intensely. All our efforts are directed at fat burning and in reality you are not going to build much muscle while operating in continual caloric deficit. The goal is to strip away the muscle-obscuring layer of lard. To that end we limit our weight training to two or three weekly lifting sessions with rest days in between. For beginner and intermediates, we recommend a whole body training session structured as follows:
Tags:bodybuilding Diet and Nutrition fat loss Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 99% [?]
28-Day Beach Blitz Part 4: Calories and Getting Started
Written on 7 May 2007 by Marty GallagherEstablish a caloric starting point by multiplying your current body weight times 15. By way of example, a 200-pound individual would be allotted 3,000 calories to commence the process. Take into account the caloric expenditure associated with exercise and eat another small supplement meal to replace and replenish calories burned through lifting and cardio. Rush restorative nutrients to traumatized muscle tissue immediately after the workout. Dousing muscles with high quality protein and a slow-release carbohydrate mixture right after a workout takes advantage of a physiological window of opportunity during which nutrients are absorbed at three times the normal rate. Each successive week for four straight weeks the plan calls for lowering the overall caloric intake and subtly tinkering with the percentage ratios of protein, carbohydrate and fat. By reducing calories and manipulating nutrients we cause body fat to oxidize while simultaneously retaining muscle mass.
GETTING STARTED:
Tags:Blog bodybuilding calorie counting carbohydrates carbs diet Diet and Nutrition fat loss Pure Strength Training Training and ExercisePopularity: 98% [?]
28 Day Beach Blitz Part 3: Preliminary Preparations
Written on 3 May 2007 by Marty GallagherThe first order of business is to establish a daily meal schedule. We don’t have time for baby talk or seductive murmurs so just read and then implement these seven bedrock principles:
Tags:carbohydrates carbs diet Diet and Nutrition fat loss Misc Training and ExercisePopularity: 100% [?]
The 28-Day Beach Blitz Part 2: Diet Pedigree
Written on 25 April 2007 by Marty GallagherYou need to be methodical and precise as every single day counts. Time is the enemy and with only four weeks to work our magic we don’t have time for fumbles, second thoughts or confusion. The dietary approach we’ll use is tried and proven by competitive bodybuilders, the acknowledged experts on shedding body fat while retaining muscle mass. We expropriate the fat-burning, muscle-retaining methodology of the athletic elite, stripping it down to bare bones for civilian use. By keeping the principles but cranking back on the degree of fanaticism the elite use, this dietetic approach is made palatable and doable for normal people. This is not another fad crash diet; this is an age-old approach designed and utilized by athletes whose competitive placing depends on how successfully they diet. Have you ever noticed that folks who slash calories using crash diet methods always end up looking just as fat at the end of the process as before? The reason is that they have lost equal (or greater) amounts of muscle along with body fat and despite dropping scale pounds their body composition remains still the same (or worsens) as pre-diet. They have succeeded in becoming a lighter version of their old fat self. Our goal is to retain muscle while oxidizing body fat. The key to hanging onto muscle in the face of declining calories during the diet process lies in keeping protein intake elevated throughout the process, modulating carbohydrate consumption and keeping fat intake to a bare minimum.
Tags:Diet and Nutrition Training and ExercisePopularity: 100% [?]
Calories, food and metabolism…the never ending dilemma
Written on 12 March 2007 by Marty GallagherMetabolism is a moving, shifting target; never finite or fixed in time and space, metabolism, like hope, floats. Here is the deal: to stay the same (another myth: organisms never stay the exact same) we need to take in about approximately as many calories as we burn during the course of the day. Take in too few calories and we won’t recover from the savage training we continually subject ourselves to. I assume your workouts are savage. Unless we train really hard and attempt to match or exceed our limit (and “limit” is another shifting target) nothing of any real physiological significance is going to happen. So we need to consume enough food to facilitate recovery and growth. On the other hand if you consume too many calories, body fat will be manufactured and added to existing fat storage sites. The goal is to drain down fat deposits.
Tags:Diet and NutritionPopularity: 8% [?]
Looks like Purposeful Primitive methodology is gaining traction!
Written on 30 March 2005 by Marty GallagherLooks like Purposeful Primitive methodology is gaining traction! (thanks John!)
The secret is there is no secret.
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Sweat equity: Actresses can’t go out and buy a buff body for an action role. They have to earn it — with diet and exercise — just like the rest of us.
By RENE LYNCH - Los Angeles Times
HOLLYWOOD — In Hollywood’s competitive climate, accolades often go to performers who either pack on the pounds (think Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones or Charlize Theron in “Monster”) or let their frames waste away (Christian Bale in “The Machinist”). There’s another category that will be hard to miss at the movie theaters this season: the phenomenally fit. Jessica Biel is a vampire slayer with deltoids to die for in “Blade:Trinity,” Hilary Swank shows off a chiseled back as a boxer in “Million Dollar Baby” and Jennifer Garner sports tightly toned abs as an action hero in “Elektra.” The actresses won’t get much praise, though, from the general public, whose sentiment runs along the lines of: “If I had a trainer and a personal chef, I’d be in the best shape of my life, too.”
Not so fast, say the fitness consultants to these stars. It’s true that celebrities enjoy perks, such as private training and nutritionists, and have plenty of time and motivation — such as big paychecks and costumes that leave nothing to the imagination. But, the consultants say, the Laws of Physiques aren’t suspended for the rich and famous. Biel, Swank and Garner earned their bodies the old-fashioned way: eating right and exercising. A combination of cardio and weight workouts were central to all three actresses’ regimens. As for diet, all three women ate three moderately sized meals and two or three snacks per day, kept a close eye on portion sizes and drank plenty of water. Having a trainer at your side is nice, said fitness consultant Bobby Strom, who helped whip Biel into shape for “Blade,” but “I can’t get on the machine and work out for Jessie. I can push, but she has to do it. She has to make the commitment. She has to choose what she’s going to put on her plate.” Biel echoed that. She recalled that at the height of her training, women were pulling her aside to ask, “What’s your secret?” It was a question that Biel identified with — and resented just a bit. “I was, like, ‘Secret? You want the secret?’ The secret is, there is no secret,” Biel said. “There’s no pill, there’s no diet, there’s no magic drink. I know how hard it is.”
The trainers agreed to describe their clients’ workouts for their big screen roles to show that there’s nothing easy — or particularly mysterious — about getting in shape, whether you are a celebrity or not. And you don’t have to spend as much time in the gym as the stars do, they said, adding that an hour’s time, five to six days a week, will make a difference. With evidence that the low-carb diet craze is fading, the fitness experts say they are hoping that 2005 will bring a more moderate approach to diets and exercise — and perhaps a different definition of beauty.”They’re strong, but they’re still feminine,” said Strom. “We’re talking about girls with meat and bones and athletic, healthy-looking bodies, not these 105-pound sticks. I like that. I think that’s a good message.”
But pop-culture expert Robert J. Thompson of Syracuse University isn’t as certain. “Anyone trolling around for some New Year’s resolutions already had a tough bar to reach. Now there’s this whole other category of Hollywood stars taking the impossible dream and making it even more impossible.” Before her latest role as a take-no-prisoners vampire slayer in the new movie “Blade: Trinity,” Biel, 22, already had a body most women would covet. Strom’s assignment went beyond simply getting Biel into shape for a grueling, physical shoot in which the actress would perform her own stunts. He also had to transform her athletic body into that of a hyper-stylized vampire assassin with an hourglass figure. First, there was weight training — something she’d never really done before — and she had to rev up her cardio activity with martial arts and kickboxing. The toughest tasks, Biel said, were Strom’s torturous jumping squats, which tightened up her legs and core muscles.In all, she was working out and training about two hours a day, five to six days a week, including her fight training for the movie. “I was just coming home and crashing. I had never really worked out that hard before. I don’t think I dreamt once, I was just so tired,” Biel said. “I was thinking, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’” A few weeks into the new regimen, Biel felt her body changing from the inside, but fretted that she wasn’t seeing similar changes on the outside.
Eventually, she got a glimpse of herself on film. “I said ‘Wait, that’s me?’ ” Biel recalled with a laugh. “I felt like it happened overnight. I was working out and eating right, and working out, and nothing was happening. And then, boom, overnight, I had muscles!”
For Biel, the biggest change was in her diet. Sugar was one of the first things that Strom stripped out of her diet, said Biel, who admits to having a severe sweet tooth. “I really went into withdrawals,” she said. “I felt like I understood what it must be like to be an addict.” Eventually, those cravings eased, although Biel occasionally indulged her yearning for sweets.”I absolutely ‘cheat,’ and I don’t apologize for it,” said Biel. “But I do plan for it, I make up for it (with a few stricter meals), and then I don’t have to feel guilty about it at all,” she said.
With the “Blade” shoot behind her, Biel has eased off the training, but still makes exercise a priority. Now, though, she ratchets up the intensity and incorporates weight workouts into her routine — “I like the muscles.” Swank walked into the gym model-thin, and struggling to keep weight on as she spent hours each week in a ring with boxing coach Hector Roca, preparing for her role in “Million Dollar Baby.” Shooting was just nine weeks away. “There wasn’t a moment to lose,” said Grant Roberts, who was hired to focus on Swank’s nutrition and weight training. Swank, 30, was practically a vegetarian, too. “Honestly, I don’t know how she was standing up, with all that boxing.”
He immediately revamped Swank’s diet so she could add the weight she needed to convincingly play a boxer, and give her the strength to survive workouts that sometimes lasted more than four hours. While Garner and Biel were consuming just under 2,000 calories a day, Swank was eating up to a whopping 4,000 calories a day, nearly all of it carefully calculated protein and essential fats. She often had to wake up in the middle of the night to down another protein shake to meet her caloric goals. Swank said the biggest change was not in her body, but in her mind. She credits her trainers with helping her to change her attitude in an old-school way, one that has long worked for boxers who need to conjure up the ferocity to fight. She’d fire herself up with an internal pep talk while she imagined the fearsome boxer she wanted to look like.
“I’d be lying in bed, thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to get up’ and then I’d start telling myself: ‘If you want to grow, you’ve gotta get up. … This is a great experience. You’ve got here to get in shape and change your body,’ and I’d really, really think about what I wanted to look like,” she said. “By then, I’d jump out of bed. “She did the same thing with her weight training, which she found particularly challenging. She realized that when she found herself thinking “I can’t do this; I’m too tired,” she dragged through the workout. But when she took the time to change her attitude, or, as she puts it, “get out of my own way,” she ripped through the same workouts with greater ease. “The mind is a very powerful tool,” she said. While the diet for Swank is too severe for the average person, Roberts points to it as an example of how powerful a tool food can be. By the time the cameras began rolling, Swank had gained 20 pounds, nearly all of it lean, hard muscle. When Garner was shooting for “Elektra,” the action movie that comes out later this month, she had to be ready for hair and makeup by 5:30 a.m. Filming was unpredictable, and often went far into the night, so night workouts weren’t an option.
Instead, Garner would practically roll out of bed to meet Valerie Waters, who has been training Garner for years for her TV series, “Alias,” at 4 a.m. The workout lasted 60 minutes, from warm-up to cool down, giving Garner just enough time to shower before dashing onto the set. “You don’t need to spend all day in the gym,” Waters said. Along with concentrated workouts, Garner is a big believer in Waters’ nutrition plan, and eats every three hours like clockwork. The actress typically cooks for herself, so she knows precisely what she’s eating and can keep an eye on portion sizes. Meals revolve around small servings of protein and high-quality carbs, Waters said.
Waters recalled going to a movie recently with Garner, where all around, people were munching on popcorn and candy and slurping sodas. Midway into the movie, Garner, 32, pulled out a baggie she had packed with carrots and hard pretzels. In other words, don’t tell Waters that celebrities have it easy. “Do you think that she really wants to get up at 4 in the morning? No,” Waters said. “It’s just as hard for her to get up after a few hours’ sleep as it is for everyone else … you still have to not eat the cookies; you still have to not have that glass of wine.”
Tags:Diet and Nutrition Purposefully Primitive People Training and ExercisePopularity: 4% [?]
Pass the vino: Irish and Italians celebrating…
Written on 22 March 2005 by Marty Gallagher Red wine is indeed good for the heart
March 21, 2005 12:28 PM EST
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Mar 18, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) — Drinking two to three glasses of red wine daily is good for the heart, confirms a Connecticut researcher, who suggests anti-oxidants in the wine may be why. There are several studies showing drinking two to three ounces of alcohol each day has a beneficial effect, says Dr. Bauer Sumpio, a professor at Yale in New Haven, Conn. While beer and spirits have some positive effect, research shows the far greater benefit comes from drinking red wine. “The current consensus is that it is not just the alcohol, but something else,” explained Sumpio who is section chief of vascular surgery in the Department of Surgery. Sumpio found that fruit, particularly berries, have polyphenols — anti-oxidants that slow cell deterioration. Polyphenols also help prevent plaque build up on the smooth muscle cells and inhibit platelet formation, which can lead to blood clotting. “A better understanding of the health benefits of red wine and perhaps the specific polyphenolic extracts with the described properties would be a great contribution to society,” Sumpio said.
Letter of the day: Just a few words regarding your cardio article and heart monitors“. I’ve recently starting using one after many years of practicing HeavyHands
. I did a smidge of reading and just a few clarifications that might have helped the article. The maximum heart rate - 220 minus your age - is often inaccurate. A better way to figure it is to strap on a heart monitor
and once warmed up, go all-out for 2-3 minutes and see how high you can get it. And I’ve found I have a different top heart rate for different activities. For me, with HeavyHands
at age 50 my maximum is 189. But if I’m running - say two hundreds at a 35-second clip - as fast as I can go - I can get up to 193. I’m fifty, so my top heart rate should be 170. And I would bet that fitter people than I - older than me - have heart rates near 200.
I also think that it’s important to mention to the weightlifters wanting to get into cardio not to go too crazy and try and go too hard for too long. Tabata style, burst cardio, you can go say 5-minutes (or so) and probably as hard as you want - as long as you don’t do it too many times a week. At my age about once a week is way fine, but a 20-year old might be able to go 2-3 times a week. Maybe world class Olympic athletes could do it 5 times a week like Tabata’s subjects, I don’t know. But hard and long is where I’m headed.
When I started using a heart monitor recently, what I found was that I was going too hard for too long. Because the ice and snow and winter darkness had curtailed my daily 2-3 mile HeavyHands walks, I began going up and down the basement stairs while pumping hand weights. It felt hard, but I had no idea how hard until I took a look at my heart rate monitor.
Sure enough, I was going at about 90% of my max heart rate for 30 minutes 3 times a week. It hadn’t really been helping my fitness. I scaled back on the hand weight size, kept an eye on my rate, and began doing small bouts of sprints within the workout (usually 100 flights). HeavyHands would probably never attract the heavy duty iron crowd. I’ve lifted steadily for the past fifteen years, but don’t really count myself at a lifter.
I’m more of a fitness freak that a gym rat. Lifters will shy away from HeavyHands because doing it makes you look like a dork. Schwartzs physique is incredible for age 70. Im sure lots of 30-year old folks wish they looked that good or felt that good. Anyhow, I enjoy your site. Have tons of respect for you. All the best.
While you can establish a true heart rate maximum with some time and effort, I cannot advise readers to do that on the off chance they might keel over trying to determine actual heart rate max as opposed to blended average. Besides I am not so sure that 100% accuracy is as important as establishing relative benchmarks. To my way of thinking the critical point is to establish a ‘benchmark baseline’ and then set this into a periodization format. Regardless the method of measure the important thing is to identify a numeric benchmark for the session: i.e., I hit 72.5% of age-related HR max in the session.
Now (regardless if this is factually 72.5% of your real heart rate maximum) we have assigned a number to the work effort generated. We now can put the results of the cardio session into a numerical context and measure the current cardio session to those that have occurred and plot a cardio course using periodization methods of what we want to occur. Over time we gradually raise the work level.
Target session length frequency Week 1 65% of age-related HR max 18-minutes 3 x weekly Week 2 67.5% 20-minutes 3 x weekly Week 3 70% 22-minutes 4 x weekly Week 4 72.5% 24-minutes 4 x weekly Week 5 75% 26-minutes 5 x weekly Week 6 77.5% 38-minutes 5 x weekly Week 7 80% 30-minutes 6 x weekly
This is a super-basic cardio periodization template. One thing for sure; will be in a hell of a lot better shape at the end of the seven week timeframe than when you commenced the process. Best of all, because it is based on creeping incrementalism (my phrase) you coax yourself into shape. As Kenny Banya would say, Genius Jerry Genius! Thats Gold Jerry Gold!
Turning up the heatAt first, the unions and management thought a fine of 10K for 1st time roid use would be a-okay; this would be a real hardship for guys making on average $2.5 million pre season.
AP: Baseball Agrees to Drop Steroid Fines
March 20, 2005 11:49 PM EST
NEW YORK - Baseball players and owners agreed Sunday to drop the possibility of fines for steroid use, leaving suspensions as the only discipline. Congressmen repeatedly criticized baseball for the fine possibility during Thursday’s hearing before the House Government Reform Committee. Management officials told the committee they were willing to eliminate the fine provision, held over from baseball’s first drug-testing agreement in 2002, but union head Donald Fehr had said he would have to consult with players. “We do have an agreement with Don that the language after the disjunctive in the various disciplinary levels is going to be eliminated,” Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president for labor relations, said Sunday. “It will be just the straight suspension, which everybody knew was going to happen anyway. To the degree there was any doubt, I think this change should put to rest any concerns in that regard.” Players and owners announced the agreement Jan. 13 but it has not been finalized. “The agreement still has to be ratified, but the negotiators have agreed to modify that language,” said Michael Weiner, the union’s general counsel. Commissioner Bud Selig repeatedly said during the hearing that his intent was to suspend players for all positive tests. “We’re glad the policy is now closer to what it was purported to be,” David Marin, spokesman for committee chairman Tom Davis, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “If our inquiry achieves nothing more than getting baseball to give its policy the teeth it said it had, we will have done some real good.” Baseball’s new agreement had called for a 10-day suspension or up to $10,000 fine for a first positive test. A second positive was to result in a 30-day suspension or up to $25,000 fine, a third in a 60-day suspension or up to $50,000 fine and a four in a one-year suspension or up to $100,000 fine. After that, discipline is determined by the commissioner. Now, it’s suspensions only. Earlier Sunday, Sen. John McCain said he thought legislation may be needed to force a tougher plan. “It just seems to me they can’t be trusted,” the Arizona Republican told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “It seems to me that we ought to seriously consider … a law that says all professional sports have a minimum level of performance-enhancing drug testing.” Davis said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he agreed with McCain’s suggestion that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency could be called in to govern baseball’s testing. The agency oversees drug testing and discipline for U.S. Olympic athletes. “They’ve got this season. We’ll see how they respond when they find someone testing positive,” the Virginia Republican said.
Tags:Diet and Nutrition Training and ExercisePopularity: 3% [?]
