Get serious! Get results!!

Don't half ass it!

If you want results from your fitness, you can't half ass it!

If you are going to the gym, don't go there to talk. I know of some who talk more than they work out. I've seen all sorts, the social catchup-ers, the hard core animal (this is the one you want to be), the cool cat (I've seriously seen a guy wearing sunnies and looking around to see who is watching him) and the half assers who just mill away for 20mins on the treadmill. 

Sure catch up before and after your session. The gym doesn't have to be a dungeon... All of the time... But leave the talk till after. Once you begin the session you should be in one state of mind! Get it done, and get the results!!

The other thing to consider is, no one cares what you look like, you don't need to have perfect hair, you don't need make up, because the only reason you are there, is to become a beast, sweat and unleash your fitness potential.

So next time you think about striking up a conversation with your fellow gym members, have a quick check, are you in beast mode? Are they in beast mode?

Cycling supplements

No I'm not talking about what Lance Armstrong used to win his Tours.

I'm talking supplements that we take for fitness and even some that we take every day that we forget are supplements.

Firstly lets remember that the body is always your worst enemy! When it comes to fitness your body has a great trick up its sleeve for making each session easier...adaptation. Your body adapts to the situation rather well as it gets more efficient at doing the job. Hence why you always need to be stepping it up if you feel it's getting easier.

Now that aside, what does your body's ability to adapt have to do with supplements?

Well in case you hadn't drawn the lines between the dots, your body just as easily adapts to the supplementation you hit it with. This means that you might feel something from a pre-workout for a week, then not feel anything for the next few weeks of using it. And unless you are willing to jack up the dose, which can lead to issues of over stimulating or exceeding the recommended dose, you might find that the $60+ you spent was a waste of money.

Ok so I hear you saying that you don't do pre-workout supplements? What about one of the most common supplements on the planet? COFFEE!? Have you ever thought about cycling your coffee routine?

Coffee is part of the methylxanthine compound group, and is used rather heavily in pre-workout supplements. So just like most things you throw at your body, it will get used to it. Sometimes to the point where you might have a coffee as a late night drink and find it doesn't affect your sleep pattern at all. We'll that's me, I can take down a black coffee before bed and find myself fall asleep just as easily.

However I know that due to the constant workplace, household and commonness of this supplement, it will not only be hard to cycle off it for a month, but it will take a toll as it cycles out of my system in the first week or so. Coffee withdrawal symptoms can range from feeling sleepy early in the morning, to having dependency headaches.

Other supplements that you should cycle are, Beta Alanine (recommended to be cycled on a 10 weeks on 5 weeks off), Creatine ( recommended to cycle 8 weeks on 4 weeks off), pre-workout energy booster ( see package for recommended cycle) and even certain protein powders, as you will find your body will get more out of a mix of proteins to gain it's sustenance from. You will find that with a proper cycling routine you will benefit more from the work and dollars you have put into your body/health investment then if you just keep hammering your body with scoop after scoop of pointless supplementing (coffee teaspoons included).

So, goodbye nice warm coffee in the morning before gym, I guess I'm going to have to put up with a bit more yawning and perhaps have a warm milo as a substitute for now. Bring on a month of coffee free days!!!

Eat to FIT

Meal planning is crucial for the sustainability of your fitness. Eating the right things at the right time is key to staving cravings and keeping the body nourished and the metabolism cranking. 

Some people "eat to live" and others "live to eat", I like to think of myself as a "eat to fit" guy.

I do love my food, haven't touched a Macca's burger in a while (since a certain friends baby was born this year), but I'm sure I'd still ho one down given the right circumstances.

So what do I mean by "eat to fit"?

Eating to FIT into your schedule, eating to stay FIT and eating to FIT your FITness goals. Do you think I got enough FIT in there?

Anyway... I'm lucky enough to have a desk job that allows me to get up and head to the lunch room to grab my morning tea, lunch and arvo tea, throughout the day. I enjoy a fairly mundane repeat meal base through my working day, Monday to Friday. This is fantastic! I set myself up for a weeks' worth of food and store it in the fridge and then take a days' worth each morning in a cooler bag, destined for the work fridge. That's not to say that the meals aren't yummy or varied in some way, they are nutrient rich and correct (goal dependant) sized for each meal.

But what about if you only get morning tea and lunch?

What if you are always on the road?

What if you hardly work and spend your time at home or away from home?

"eat to fit!" so get a cooler bag and an ice block and take your meals mobile, make all of your meals as if you are going to take them to work or not and keep the routine while at home, include arvo tea and morning tea meals that don't need refrigerating and keep them at your desk to eat at the right time.

OK so what about eating to fit on the weekend? Well know your weekend is the first thing. If you know you are heading to a friends house for a barbeque on a Saturday night, plan for this, eat your breakfast at the right time, have your morning tea snack as close to the right time as possible (this can be hard if you have suffered from a case of the sleep in), lunch on time and have a smaller arvo snack. Eat minimal pre BBQ snacks (unless they are super healthy, but still, best not to spoil the main event) and then limit all of the unhealthy condiments and bulk up on the good salads to balance the meaty goodness of the BBQ.

What if you're going to the cinemas on a Sunday arvo? Stick with your routine, and make sure you have a good healthy snack BEFORE you head out. Things like frozen cokes, popcorn, chocolate bars and the appeal of that $1 upgrade need to be limited.

Everything really comes back to the planning of your food intake, not so much the calorie counting and carbs v's fat (that can be left to the formula set out for your goal), if you "eat to fit" and plan what is going to happen, you will stay hunger free and guilt free from one gym session to the next.

Steroid

 

A lot if people look around a gym or even as they walk around town, and see giants and think..."how did they get so big?" Their next thought moves quite rapidly to "steroids!"

Most definitely the big Mr Olympias at the moment have used or continue to use steroids for growth and other barbaric practices to maintain a beastly body. But there are also those who have worked hard and eaten right and trained hard to get a great, drug free body. 

 

So how can you spot the fakers (don’t get me wrong a lot of hard work goes into the training even with steroids, but even more goes into getting a naturally big and muscular physique)? Well, short of asking them, or getting them to show the shrinkage in their balls, there are some obvious signs. One obvious one is odd proportioning, what I mean by this is that the person might have one muscle area bigger than the other. If a person trains excessively on that one muscle they love so much, the steroids use will increase the hypertrophy dramatically in that area. This can lead to giant biceps but smaller shoulders, or massive lats but small chest. It looks odd. Another sign is the acne. Extra testosterone causes puberty woes all over again, mix this with, excessive sweat from training and BAM acne, backne, I’ve even seen a chap with backneckne. Prolonged use can cause early male pattern balding, so most opt for the shaved head look. Another sign is in the chest, some people get Bitch tits, this is where the nipples turn down and breast tissue development occurs, it looks pretty messed up. Other signs for those close to the person will also include ADHD like edginess, always needing to be doing something. Rage spurts and energy spurts, and odd behaviour in their demeanour.

 

I’m pretty sure that I had a fellow gym goer raise concern quite discreetly that I might be on the roids. Big lol, wouldn’t take it unless it was doctor prescribed to recover from an injury or major medical issue. Besides a few pre-workouts and supplements I remain and will remain all natural baby! Reaching for the genetic potential.

 

What if you think, I need a helping hand to get the physique that you dream of?

 

Well I would put it to you that you might want to consider all of the effects that this drug can have on your body BEFORE you decide to break free of your genetics. Here is a rather comprehensive list if what using and abusing the drug can do;

For men.... 
- infertility 
- breast development 
- shrinking of the testicles 
- male-pattern baldness 
- Enlarged prostate

For women.... 
- enlargement of the clitoris 
- excessive growth of body hair 
- male-pattern baldness 
- masculinization 
- breast reduction in females

Musculoskeletal system..... 
- short stature (if taken by adolescents) 
- tendon rupture 
- aching joints 
- swelling of feet and ankles

Cardiovascular system.... 
- high blood pressure 
- heart attacks 
- enlargement of the heart's left ventricle

Liver... 
- cancer 
- peliosis hepatis 
- tumors

Skin..... 
- severe acne and cysts 
- oily scalp 
- jaundice (skin and the white part of the eyes become yellow and in severe cases, brown.) Click on the first link of my ''know your sources?'' for more details. 
- fluid retention

Infection (if unaware of exactly where the product was produced and/or sharing needles).... 
- HIV/AIDS 
- hepatitis

Psychiatric effects.... 
- rage, aggression 
- mania 
- delusions 
- post-use depression

Other effects... 
- nosebleeds 
- incresed sex drive 
- reduced libido

So my advice?

Eat right for your goals, train right for your goals and benefit from reaching your goals. Don’t set a goal to look like the next Mr Olympia unless you are prepared to start killing yourself from the inside out.

Let your fitness fit your life

Sometimes life throws a few curve balls and changes your plans around.

So no matter what you normally have planned for fitness you may find your plans unstuck.

This could put you out a day or two or maybe a little longer.

This week I have had three small setbacks.

A short notice funeral invite that meant I couldn't train Monday, due to travel time.

A Wednesday morning stomach cramp, this impeded my ability to stand until it passed. But now that it has passed, RPM is still on the cards for the arvo!

And the final problem, is two days of training away from home which will mean that Thursday and Friday are out of the equation.

So what must be done?

Catch up of course!!!

Saturday morning will be a double session with Legs (can't skip this) and calves (I split the legs and calves into 2 separate sessions) and Sunday morning will be arms and abs, though technically this will be 3 workouts in one morning (biceps, triceps and abs).

Normally I would treat Sunday as a rest day if possible, but if my life won't fit the fitness, the fitness must fit the life.

Be prepared to replan. Skipping altogether shouldn't be an option. Make the effort to replan and catch up. If you take classes and these are un-catch-up-able, catch up in another way, go for a jog, do a half hour of home gyming, just catch up!

Motivational music selection.

This week found myself stumbling upon a treasure chest of old music locked away in a hard drive that had become abandoned in favor of portable hard drives in more recent times. 

I spent about an hour sifting through and finding little gems to ad to my iPod for abs day (regardless of the fact that I forgot to transfer the playlist to my iPod making abs day a repeat of my old music) never the less I found some songs that I wanted to share via the medium of YouTube. 

Here they are. 

http://youtu.be/aUyFZ0nL4TY

http://youtu.be/UUI874piajI

(I couldn't get the embedded links to work on my my mobile. )

Golden bodies

For the last week I have posted onto my Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ff2f-Kdawg/307244492734782 ) some inspirational male and female fitness bodies, ranging from athlete to actor and fitness models. 

Here is the golden bodies collection all together. 

Franco Columbu

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Andreia Brazier

Sergio "the myth" Oliva

Jodie Marsh

Dwayne Johnson

Eugen Sandow

Ashley Horner

Lazar Angelov

Now these people might be at an elite level that you think you yourself cannot attain but if you never see the peak of the mountain how will you know what you are climbing towards?

Use these people as inspiration and motivation because even if you only could get to 80 % of what they have achieved what would you have accomplished against what you are now?