Metabolism Myths + Solution to Keep You Fired UP!

A faster metabolism is the holy grail of fat loss right?

If you have a faster metabolism, you’ll burn more calories with less effort and fit into your jeans much better in less time….win – win – win…

However, there’s conflicting info out there as to the best way to increase your metabolism, but one thing is for sure: you can’t go wrong by training as if your life depended on it (because it actually does).

Before I go into that, I want to dispel a few metabolism myths so you can stop wasting your precious time.

#1: Adding one pound of muscle will drastically increase your metabolism

Have you read that adding one pound of muscle, you can burn approximately 50 calories extra at rest every day? Well sadly, this isn’t totally true.

Muscle burns 6 calories/day at rest while fat only burns 2 (on average). So, while you won’t magically burn hundreds of extra calories by adding lean muscle to your body, it will certainly help. AND the bonus is that muscle is much more attractive and functional than hauling around fat.

And let’s be clear, it’s not easy to add even 5 lbs of lean muscle, so if your hope for a faster metabolism is to pack on the beef, this may be an unrealistic expectation.

More realistically, if you make simple dietary changes and exercise regularly with short and fiery workouts, you’re more likely to boost your metabolism and get fat loss results while maintaining your muscle or adding moderate amounts.

#2: This ‘Magic Bullet’ Will Speed Up Your Metabolism

Look, there is seriously NO magic bullet for fat loss. Don’t fall for anything that promises you that you can go to sleep and magically wake up beach or bikini ready.

There are a few supplements (like this one) that I’ve even suggested that will help if it’s used in conjunction with the right behaviors. If you’re doing all the right things like eating properly and exercising correctly. A magic pill on it’s own is like hoping for a magic bean stalk – pretty much a fairy tale.

If finances are super tight, focus on sweaty workouts and spend your hard earned dollars on quality nutrition.

#3: Nutrition NO-How

 

scale funny

Pick up any fitness magazine and you’ll see conflicting advice. Eat more, eat less, eat this, don’t eat that. My point is, if you listen to every so called ‘nutrition guru’ you’ll be paralyzed with indecision as to what you should be eating and you may be tempted to jump from one plan to another.

Honestly, many folks do what others tell them to do instead of listening to their own body and appetite. You may eat based on the time of day whether you’re hungry or not. You may jump on the latest diet fad and switch plans as often as you change your socks. No wonder your body gets confused and wants to hold onto every last ounce of fat. It goes into survival mode.

The best plan of attack is to go with a sensible nutrition plan that doesn’t have you starving or eating silly things like maple syrup and cayenne pepper for days. Ensure that you give yourself a 10 out of 10 rating for compliance to your plan for 30 consecutive days – if you haven’t achieved any results, then and only then should you switch your eating. You must give things a chance to happen because things may be shifting from the inside out.

Most times you KNOW more about nutrition than you let on…it’s the CONSISTENT application of simple nutrition principles that will get you results. Don’t befuddle yourself with the latest fad – listen to your body and your appetite. I like this simple plan best because it’s sensible and can be used long term for consistent weight loss, management and all day energy.

#4: Age does NOT Equal a SLOWER Metabolism

Stop the age excuse. Just stop.

You are led to believe that with the natural aging process comes a slower metabolism so you just have come to accept it. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

What REALLY happens as you age is that you may start to lose precious muscle tone due to increased sedentary living. Consistent training keeps muscles firing, your body functioning and feeling good and it also helps keep your metabolism fired up.

  • Lose muscle and you lose the ability to burn calories as effectively.
  • Lose muscle and you lose your sexy shape and your ability to do easy tasks.
  • Lose muscle and you start to LOSE YOUR YOUTH.

You CAN reverse this seemingly inevitable decline with CONSISTENT training. You can defy the odds. If you include resistance training (this includes bodyweight training) you’ll see a slower decline in muscle tone and you won’t notice any weight gain.ch fit club grp image

No matter your age, you’ll be able to speed up your metabolism with these tips and simply by keeping your training FRESH.

Take a look at this for fresh fitness =======>

BONUS TIP: Training is the fountain of youth and will keep those metabolic fires burning.

Look, if you’re making the effort to workout then you may as well get the best possible results in the shortest amount of time, right?

Or you can do what most people do which is to just go through the motions without burning any more fat, or losing inches, or getting stronger or more defined.

This is called ‘exercise adaptation’. It’s your enemy… and it’s where you DON’T want.

This is how ‘dreaded’ exercise adaptation is defined: Adaptation refers to your body’s physiological response to training. When you do new exercises or load your body in a different way, your body reacts by increasing it’s ability to cope with that new stress. It’s a good idea to change the frequency, intensity, time and type of exercise you do periodically to avoid plateaus and continue challenging your body.

Did you see that?

challenge and change

 

 

 

 

 

 

You need to CHALLENGE your body if you want to CHANGE it. And that’s why I developed the Challenge Fit Club.

It’s a scientific fact.

And it’s not just about making your self sweat more. There has to be structure to your program, otherwise you’re just wasting your time.

PhD Jim Stoppani says, ‘You must expose your body to a training style for just long enough to reap the benefits but avoid a nosedive of adaptation. He says, “everything works, but nothing works forever.”

Having a large arsenal of training methods to use for short periods and continually cycling them in a systematic order will prevent stagnation and maximize training adaptations. (Kraemer et al. 2003; Marx et al. 2001; Rhea & Alderman 2004; Willoughby 1993)

What if you had a progressive workout challenge every 21 days?

You’ll never be bored with your workouts again. boring1

Every 21 days you’ll get a new program delivered right to your inbox.

Each module will include a CHALLENGE to start off the 21 days. Your goal will be to IMPROVE on each specific challenge by the end of the module.

There’s nothing like having a specific goal and deadline to meet it.

Set a goal.

Meet the goal.

That’s the secret to my Challenge Fit Club.

This alone will help you bust through any training plateau you’re experiencing. Plus it crushes workout boredom and the monotony of the same old routine.

Check it out here.

PS. Here’s a sample workout from the Sprint Module:

Shuttle UP Sprint Challenge

Challenge: This is a timed set. As a challenge, decrease the rest between each of the sets the next time you try the workout. If necessary, increase the rest through out the workout as required.

Equipment: timer, dumb bell

Timing: Do 30 seconds of work

Set your time for various rest times between sets depending on your fitness level. You could try 20, 15 or 10 seconds rest between sets. Increase/decrease rest as needed.

Do 30 seconds of each exercise: sprints

  • Shuttle sprint
  • Goblet squats (or prisoner squats)
  • Lateral shuttle sprints
  • Push up shoulder touch
  • Shuttle sprint
  • Plank alternate leg lift (active recovery)

Repeat for 5 rounds

Can’t sprint? Training Variation:

  • Replace the shuttle sprint with burpees.
  • Replace the lateral shuttle sprints with skaters.

Get FOLLOW ALONG VIDEOS for all the workouts and a new plan every 21 days. You’ll love these cool modules:

1-Bodyweight Training
2-Jump Rope Training
3-MRT – Metabolic Resistance Training
4-Sprint Training
5-Trouble Spot Training
6- Suspension Training
7- KB Challenge

 Fire up YOUR metabolism and your training with the Challenge Fit Club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metabolic Resistance Training Anyone?

Maybe you recall that I posted I was doing videos in July (yes, July)…ch fit club photo shoot 1

I bet you sort of gave up on this program didn’t you? I know I almost did.  Well, sadly my webmaster’s partner suddenly died in November of 2014. This slowed things down considerably.

Also, to my delight, Rob Jaeger, my awesome video dude decided to make FULL FOLLOW ALONG videos for the project, so that ended up taking longer than expected.

The good news is that the project is soooo close to being completed that I feel like I can start to get you excited about it again.

Here’s what you can get excited about:

  • An ALL NEW workout program that will be delivered to your inbox every 21 days
  • An ALL NEW workout challenge – complete with pre/post test to evaluate your fitness progress
  • Exciting modules including: Bodyweight Training, Jump Rope Workouts, Metabolic Resistance Training, Suspension Training, Kettlebell Training, Trouble Spot Training and Sprint Training
  • Full FOLLOW ALONG videos for each module
  • A ‘challenge’ workout (for the pre/post test), four workouts designed to improve fitness performance, a  bonus challenge for each module AND a minimum of two ways to change every workout.

I KNOW you’re going to LOVE this program that will provide you with 21 weeks of workouts. Here’s a sample workout that will keep you busy 🙂 This is from the Metabolic Resistance Training module.

Enjoy!

PUSH! (Oh, & PULL Some More) Challenge

Challenge: This is a ‘count up’ set. Set your timer for 15 minutes. The goal of the workout is to increase the number of reps for each exercise for each round. Get more rounds with more reps each time you try this workout.

Equipment: Timer, box, pull up bar

Start with 2 reps of each, count up by two’s. How high will you get in 15 minutes? mtr

Exercises:

  • Decline push up (regular push up)
  • Pull up (assisted pull up, inverted row, wall sit stick up)
  • Renegade row with push up
  • Box jumps (squat jumps or squats)

Need a Change? Training Variation:

Do 7 reps of all exercises for 5 rounds.

You’re gonna LOVE Challenge Fit Club, stay tuned I hope to have it ready for you by the end of the week 🙂

 

My Favorite Things

It’s Valentine’s DayValentine-Date-.

Of course everyone always thinks of ‘love’ on this day and I’m the same.

The love that I’ll speak about is OBVIOUSLY going to be of the sweaty variety and a little different than the mushy sort of Hallmark cards.

Would you expect any different from me? I mean, think about it. What can you ALWAYS count on to be there for you with relentless intensity? Where the passion just never fades?

Well, burpees of course. Or complexes. Or metabolic resistance training. Or jump rope. Or the suspension trainer…You get the idea.

So in today’s article, I’d like to refer you to some of my favorite workouts.

Now you must understand that choosing a favorite workout is like asking me to pick my favorite child or family dog. I happen to love training, and many styles of it. It depends on a few factors as to what my favorite workout is on a particular day. For example, I have an ongoing issue with my knee, so a favorite workout on a sore knee day would be one that I can do without irritating it. Like this one for example which tends to not bother my knee much:

Of course everyone loves burpees!

This is a ‘RIST’ style workout, that means ‘reps in specific time’. The goal is to get 10 reps in every one minute.

Now you can follow along with me or you can do this on your own. If 10 reps is too many, set your sights on 5 or 7 what ever you can handle that’s a challenge.

To spice things up, I’ve added a different burpee variation for each of the 10 sets. You can do my variation, do your own or just do regular burpees. For this workout, I did NOT do the push up.

Here are the variations I did for each set:
1. regular burpee
2. double jump burpee
3. mountain climber burpee
4. frogger burpee
5. get up burpee
6. reverse lunge burpee
7. 3 jacks + a burpee
8. long jump burpee
9. skater burpee
10. push up shoulder touch burpee

You can get a ton of burpee workouts and over 50 burpee variations here.

I’m a big complexes fan. Here’s a good workout:

All you need is a barbell and 10-12 minutes.

Do this workout AMRAP style, or as many rounds as possible in 10-12 minutes:

5 high pull
5 front squat
5 push press
5 RDL
5 (per leg) incline spider crawl push ups

Your active recovery is the push up set. Pick up the bar and get after it right away, rest only when your form is falling apart.

Get a ton of barbell, dumb bell and kettle bell complexes with coaching videos here.

Here’s one of my favorite workouts that I do with a barbell:

This is a ‘down the rack’ workout that helps keep resistance and intensity high. It can be done with a few exercises like the squat, bench press, dead lift (actually any other move you choose). I like to keep these ‘Big 3’ compound moves as a staple in my workout regime.

Choose three loads that you can add to an Olympic bar (use smaller plates so that you can easily strip the bar). OR, this can be done with 3 sets of DB’s.

Do a set number of reps with the heaviest weight, (I’ll usually do 8-10 reps), take off 20-30 lbs, do another 8-10 reps and drop another 20-30 lbs for 8-10 reps.

Rest for 2 min and repeat this another 2-3 times. This is a fun challenge workout you can do and there’s no need to have a spot as you keep dropping the weight as you fatigue.

Now, if these workouts are a little too intense for you, then I have a few options for the ladies. Head over to my OTHER blog HERE and you’ll see two MORE less intense workout options there.  ========>

 

 

See what I mean about my love of workouts? There’s just SO much variety, there’s no chance that this love will ever get stale when there’s the endless ways to spice things up.

Check out ILoveChallengeWorkouts.com for lots of my workout programs and fall in love today 🙂

 

Strengthen Your Core and Burn Belly Fat At Once

I always get asked what the BEST ab move is AND how can one can get rid of belly fat. abs

To me, these are sort of different questions: one is functional and one is aesthetic.

The BEST ab move to strengthen the core is anything plank related.

This strengthens the transverse abdominus muscle – there are actually 4 layers of muscles in your core (see here) ===>

As for getting rid of belly fat, that’s something a little different. While there are some studies to show that LOCAL thermogenesis (increase in temperature) will help spot reduce, the BEST way to both strengthen the core and reduce belly fat is to do metabolically expensive core related exercise, like in these workouts.

First, here are some tips for doing a plank:

Here’s a workout that will strengthen your core AND get you in a hot and sweaty mess with JUST your bodyweight:

Bodyweight workouts can’t be beat. Here’s one called ‘Planks for the Abs’

Here’s the timing:
45/10 advanced
30/10 intermediate
20/10 beginner

Do three rounds

squat jump (full body extension)
plank jack (plank)
side plank
side plank
burpee
plank with alt leg lift

What’s great about this workout is that there’s a definite emphasis on the core, but you’ll also boost your metabolism with the heart pounding squat jump and burpees (which also engage the core).

Win – win!

Strengthen the core and burn off belly fat at the same time…

If you love variety, you’ll love this Metabolic Bundle where you’ll get 18 core strengthening and belly fat burning workouts: 6 bodyweight , 6 burpee workouts and 6 Challenge Complexes. All these workouts come with videos to ensure that your form is right on.

metabolic bundle

Burn belly fat AND strengthen your core all at once with these calorically expensive but financially INEXPENSIVE video workouts 🙂

Click here and use the coupon code LookBetterNaked on the check out page to get 50% off!

Guest Post: 5 Tips to DOMINATE Your Double Unders

How’s it going? Robby Blanchard here!

If you are reading this blog post right now then you already know and love Shawna and her awesome training, Challenge Workout programs and her pullups. I mean, Shawna can bust out pullups like nobody’s business…how awesome is that?! But on top of all that she is an awesome person and coach.

So the other day me and Shawna were speaking on the phone and she had asked me to write a guest post today to give you some tips on how to do a double under.

I guess you could say she “roped” me into doing it…bada bing!

double under 1

Don’t know what a double under is? Don’t worry…we will get to that in a second. But before I do…let me tell you a little bit about me…
I love to golf, I have an unhealthy obsession with sneakers and I love to ski. In fact, as I’m writing this right now we are in the middle of getting almost 3 feet of snow in the Blizzard of 2015 here in Boston so I’m pretty excited to hit the slopes later.

I have also been a coach and trainer for almost a decade and for the last four years I’ve owned a CrossFit Box (which means gym in the language of CrossFit…don’t worry I’ll be your translator).

In CrossFit we incorporate a lot of jump roping into our workouts. Of all the jump rope movements that you can do, the Double Under is the “gold standard.” Double Unders are basically when you swing the jump rope underneath you twice in one jump…hence the name, Double Under.
It really is an awesome movement because A.) it looks cool to do and B.) If normal jump roping can burn 19 calories a minute…just imagine the calorie burn that you can get from double unders 🙂

This movement can be hard to learn at first if you’ve never done it before. In fact some members of my gym would take up to 6 months to learn how to do a double under. And of course there would be many whip marks along the way.

Honestly, it shouldn’t take you 6 months to learn this movement. In fact, if you follow a program like my Dominate Your Double Under Program it can take you less than 21 days. I want to help as many people as possible learn how to do double unders because its an awesome fat burning exercise and is such a great way to tone and strengthen your body.
Without further adieu, here are 5 tips that will help you get closer to dominating your double unders in your next workout.

double under 2

1. The Setup:

In order to be successful in double unders, you need to be set up correctly with your jump rope.
Feet should be underneath your hips.
Stand tall with your arms slightly bent at your side.
Look straight ahead but should still be able to see your hands with your peripheral vision.
Also, thing about keeping your arms in tight…as if your triceps were stuck to your sides.

2. The Jump:

It’s important that when you are jumping that you keep your feet underneath you the entire time. You don’t want to donkey kick (kicking your legs back) or pike (kicking your legs forward). Both of these will make it really hard to rebound off of the ground. By keeping your feet underneath you, this allows you to stay light on your feet and rebound faster.
Also, think about lengthening your jump as if you were trying to touch your head to the ceiling. Remember, that rope is less than a centimeter thick…so if you jump 6″ in the air…thats more than enough room for it to pass through twice!

3. The Wrists:

The wrists should be doing the most work when it comes to getting that rope around. It’s important to keep your arms in tight and use your wrists as that is the most efficient way to do multiple double unders in a row. Remember, as long as your wrists are moving faster than your jump, you’ll be in a good position to get a double under. Even if you have to slow your jump a bit, thats ok…just as long as your wrist speed is high and in sync.

4. The Rope:

There are hundreds of choices when it comes to a good speed rope. In terms of brand its really personal preference. However, its very important that you size your rope correctly. Make sure that those handles are no higher than your armpits (leave it a little longer if you are just starting out). Also, the handles are like the shaft on the golf club…the most important part. If you can find handles that spin smooth without resistance, this will help give you an advantage.

5. Practice:

Above all, there is nothing more important to learning the double under than being consistent in your practice. If you are consistent, you can learn in less than 21 days as I prove in my program.

The Double Under is an awesome movement that is extremely cool to learn. If you follow these five tips from my Dominate Your Double Unders program  you will be well on your way to dominating your double unders and you will have another great fat burning too to add some variety to your jump rope and daily workouts.

Keep Rockin!
Robby Blanchard, MBA, BS, CPT

Robby is the Owner of CrossFit Reach and the Creator of Dominate Your Double Unders, a program designed to help you learn how to double under in 21 days or less. He is a CrossFit Level 1 trainer, CrossFit Olympic Lifting and CrossFit Strongman Certified as well as a USAW Level 1 Coach. Robby has over 9 years of experience in the world of Strength of Conditioning and uses his experience to help improve the health and fitness of everyone that is following his programs.