A Few Reasons You Are Not Losing Fat

1. Your a closet eater: Does somebody have a little secret? Come on, fess up. It's time to come out of the closet..... seriously!! Come clean!! Your only lying to yourself.

This is not what I mean by closet eater

Okay, quit giggling.... Lets move on. It's the most basic rule in the game of weight loss and weight gain. If you want to lose weight, you MUST be in an energy deficit. In you want to gain weight, you MUST be in an energy surplus. Too many people are hiding in the closet and consuming far too many calories than they should for the goal of fat loss. Here are a couple things you have not been counting.....

Fruit juice - But fruit is good for you, right? Absolutely!! But eat it, don't drink it.




Alcohol - (holy shit Batman, there is calories in that??). Your excuse may be that you only drink on the weekends. Guess what? All those Porters you've been slugging down have about 200 calories per beer. Time for Go Go Gadget Dewey to bust out some math:

200 calories x 4 beers Friday night = 800 calories
200 calories x 4 beers Saturday night = 800 calories
800 calories + 800 calories = 1,600 calories

1 pound of fat consists of 3,600 calories. You can do the math from here. I think you see what I'm getting at.

Does this count as one or two beers?

Top that of with the late night alcohol munchies.... You know..... Ice cream, desserts.... Rollos :-)

2. You are lazy at the gym: It will take me a couple tries to guess what you are doing for cardio (stupid word)... The elliptical?? No... The recumbent bike. I am right huh? Why is it that these are the two most used (treadmill a close third) pieces of cardio equipment in most gyms? I will tell you, they are the easiest. It's funny, everybody wants results but most people don't want to work hard. Next time you are in the gym (not IMPACT, you won't see lazy there) check out what people are on. It will be this order of popularity:

Elliptical
Recumbent bike
Treadmill (this may tie with the bike)
Stair stepper
Step mill (this is the hardest in regular gyms... remember, regular gyms don't have Airdyne bikes, sleds, slideboards, ropes, open space to sprint, etc)

You will see people spending 30+ minutes doing steady state aerobics (a waste of time) while watch tv. Then those same people hop of that dreaded cardio equipment and wonder why they still look the same they did 3 years ago when they joined the gym. Hello, McFly!!!!!!

And if your saying, "I don't do any of those things, I do step aerobics (*insert silly group class here*) or work out to FIT tv in the morning". The same goes for you. That's one of the reasons your not getting results. At least not the results you want.

Just a little example of working hard in the gym:

We will do this for 3-5 minutes with 1 minute rest. We will repeat it for 3-5 sets. Heart rates soar!!

3. You are in denial: You don't have enough time to work out, lifting weights makes you bulky, health food tastes bad, you have a thyroid problem (this can be real but it is a very small chance), you have bad genetics. The list goes for days. Stop it!! Get to work.

DN

Planks: Longer or Harder?

How should you challenge yourself more on plakning exercises?? You can do two things. Increase the time or increase the difficulty of the exercise. I prefer the latter (once someone can hold a plank for 30 seconds). Plus who wants to do a plank for 1 minute +??

There are endless ways to make planks harder but I do think people can get a little carried away with this. I mean, how hard does it need to be? We program planking exercises in between strength exercises as a rest/recovery exercise. So I have no problem with them not being the hardest exercise in the world.

Here are a few ways to make planks and side planks harder:





DN

Fake Stretching

Stretching is one of those things that people tend to not think about much. They simple just go through the motions trying to look as flexible as they can. What ends up happening is they end up moving through the wrong areas and not stretching the muscles that they are supposed to be stretching. This is called "relative flexibility". It is when the body goes through a range of motion and chooses the path of least Resistance. I simply call it "fake stretching". Here are three areas of the body that people typically use "fake stretching":

Hamstrings - The picture on the left is an example of fake stretching for the hamstrings. The picture on the right is correct way to stretch the hamstrings. The hamstrings don't attach to the lumbar spine so flexing over with not increase the stretch. Instead, focus on driving the tailbone back, hinge at the hips and maintain a tall spine.


Hip flexor - This is so common with hip flexor stretching. Notice the large sway in the back in the picture on the left. This is an anterior tilt of the pelvis. The pelvis should actually move posterior like the picture on the right. Want to feel more stretch? Squeeze the glute of the same side being stretched.


Piriformis - Again, the picture on the left is wrong and the picture on the right is the correct way to stretch the piriformis. If you haven't seen this stretch, you can read about it and see the video here. This is pretty much the only piriformis stretch we use anymore. It is much like the hamstring stretch. Don't round your back. Maintain an arch in the low back and simply kick your hip out to the side.


DN

Plyometric Training

I was having some "writer's block" so I figured I wouldn't write anything and rather post a few plyometric training videos that I had buried in my computer.

Box Jump:


Hurdle Jumps - continuous


Lateral Bound & stick


DN