Fitness Findings

So you want the lean, defined, muscled look of athletes and Hollywood actors. Seems like they have a shining aura of magic about them as their bodies glisten with perfection, but in truth anyone can get this type of a look and it might not be as hard as you think.

In fact you might not even be as far from this look as you think. The key is, it has more to do with your body fat than it does the amount of muscle you are carrying around. Everyone really does have it backwards.

Truth be told, if you gain a ton of muscle, but have even a normal amount of body fat you will look big, but not impressive at all without your shirt on.

The opposite is also true, if your bodyfat is low enough, with even a modest amount of muscle in the right places, you will look very impressive with no shirt.

You DO NOT need as much muscle as you might think

The shorter you are the less you need to make this look happen for you, of course if you are really tall you will need more muscle to fill out your frame, but it’s all the same method.

Think of a single pound of muscle as raw meat.

This is about 16 oz of chicken, so like a pound of muscle. Without the olive oil and spices though. Imagine taking the chicken or whatever meat you want and picture slapping it onto your frame as muscle. Sure, one chicken breast doesn’t seem like a lot, but picture 10 of them on your upper body.Filling in your chest, your shoulders, your arms. You would look way bigger, especially if you focused a lot on certain parts. Now picture, 20, 30…even 40 of those things. If you do that you can see that a lot of what people say out there is B.S. in regards to how much muscle they say they have gained. With only 10 pounds of solid muscle you will see a massive difference, but even less will have an impact if your bodyfat is low.

When you first start lifting you will see your biggest gains, and they will happen MUCH faster than any other time

If you never lifted before, then that is awesome for you as you will notice the changes happen quick, especially if you start on the right track. If you have been lifting a while, then chances are you already have a good solid foundation of muscle and really all you need is some definition and to get to the right amount of bodyfat.

Since the goal is to lose fat and gain muscle can you do that at the same time??? A lot of people say you can’t!!!

That is probably because a lot of people have never even tried it in fear that they will lose muscle they have gained, and some people wont try it because they think it’ll stunt your muscle growth. I have done it before and you absolutely can gain muscle and lose fat at the same exact time. But you can’t do it unless you are in a caloric restriction at some point, and you also have to have enough protein. That’s really it.

To lose fat and gain muscle at the same time you must:

• be burning more energy than you are taking in
• be consuming enough protein to fuel your muscles
• be physically training in some form of progressive resistance to actually cause the muscle to build in the first place

It’s really simple, but can be challenging because you do HAVE to be taking in enough protein while also eating less calories than your body needs, so you burn fat at the same time.

First off determine how many calories you need to sustain life, and those calculators online aren’t very accurate, but they can give you a rough estimate. I’m 5’6 and they always put me at around 1400-2000 a day, so some are really inaccurate.

Here is one of em if you just wanna try it out  ====> Calorie Calculator

Once you get a baseline of where to start, then you want to reduce that by a certain amount of calories. I would suggest 300-400 at first. Since most say my body burns about 1600 a day just being alive, I would try eating 1,200 calories a day and see if I lost weight. I know that I would, but say I didn’t, well then I would reduce it another 100, till I hit my sweet spot. Sometimes you get lucky the first time and start losing weight immediately! Try to test it out.

If you are extremely active, then factor in the calories you will be burning with whatever physical activity you are doing. I used to have a really labor intensive job for instance, and during that time I tried dieting down. Since I was already not eating many calories, it combined with the calories I was burning at work and I lost a ton of fat, but it was too much. I ended up feeling horrible and had to start eating more. Don’t cut yourself by too much, and if you do, then don’t worry just add in more calories till you find the right balance.

Don’t stress too much over protein, but to be safe try to get around 125 grams a day

You can check out Brad Pilon’s book >>  HOW MUCH PROTEIN<< if you want a really in depth look at exactly how much protein we truly require and just a lot about protein itself.  But either way I personally suggest you make sure you have enough protein because if you don’t you will not build muscle.

Now I’m going to suggest programs here that will help you get this type of look, now that you know your calories required to lose the fat, and you know how much protein you are going to be eating…

You DO NOT need these programs to succeed and you can do this on your own, it’s just easier for some people to have a guide and at least check em out, if not then no worries you can still get this look other ways. There is no one best way, there are a lot of different methods! So I’ll list some stuff and a little bit of info about each and then at the end I’ll put some methods that you can make your own program.

• Visual Impact Muscle Building: This is the test I have been doing for a bit now, and I can definitely suggest it because it delivers this type of look. I think everyone would benefit from trying it out, and that is why it’s my first suggestion on programs. If you use this, you will look the way you want.
• The Muscle Maximizer: I have not done this program personally, but have read up on it and apparently people are getting good results from it. I would suggest this if you don’t have a lot of muscle already and really need to gain some to get this type of look. I might do a test on this one at some point myself. If you click the link it has a video that explains the program. Check it out and see if it’s for you.
• Truth About Abs: Kind of a newer program, designed around similar philosophy of losing fat as the main point. If you click the link it also has a video explaining it. (Kind of a cool video using drawing) Same thing, I haven’t personally tried it yet but have heard good things. You can check it out and see if it’s for you.

This next one isn’t a weight training program, but can be highly highly valuable to you for fat loss and just health in general:

• EAT STOP EAT: Another of Brad Pilon’s, and really the most informative thing around on Intermittent fasting. If you are or aren’t interesting in intermittent fasting you probably will start no matter what after reading it and you wont regret it. It’s one of the easiest ways to actually cut calories, and lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. I really suggest everyone read this and try it out!

•  BURN THE FAT FEED THE MUSCLE: Another awesome book that will help you lose fat, this is more about the best nutritional information regarding fat loss. If you read both of these, you will know just about everything you could need to staying as lean as you want forever. I never regretted buying either of these.

This is just several of the many awesome programs out there, but some of the best to get this type of look, however, you can definitely do it on your own too

To make your own program, you need a bit more dedication because you don’t have something to go back to for reference. You have to have confidence that it will work, and consistency. It will take a bit more work on your part, but you can definitely do it with theright mindset.

Here are the steps I would go through in order to make a program to get this type of look:

1. Find out your daily calorie needs and reduce that by 300-500
2. Decide how many times a week you can dedicate to weight lifting
3. Pick a workout split that you would enjoy doing for the next few months ( example- back, bicep, forearm day, chest, tricep, shoulder day and then leg day)
4. Pick 2 lifts to perform for each body part, perhaps more if you feel you need it, or less if you think you don’t, it’s up to you, test and see what works best
5. Always lift progressively, each time you lift should be more weight than the last time, or more sets, or less rest in between sets, just some kind of progression ( this is how muscle is built and progress is determined)

It’s really this simple, but of course there are a lot of little details!

You will do the same thing so much it'll look like this!

First off the most important thing is consistency!

Don’t worry so much about one weight training session, think of it as a whole. You are going to be lifting that weight many many many times. One time wont do anything, it’s the combination. Yes you need to give focus and intensity each time, but if you don’t keep doing it then nothing will progress and nothing will happen! So just push yourself to keep going, find the motivation, find the reasons why you are lifting and keep at it!

Try to limit each session to around 45 minutes to an hour

This will help keep them focused, keep the intensity up and make your lifting experience better overall. I used to spend around 2 hours doing my training, and though I did get big, I was so tired all the time, and I didn’t gain anymore then when I cut my training down.

Don’t stress so much about the speed of the lift

Some people say lift fast, others say slow…it does matter a bit on muscle fiber recruitment in that if you lift really slow your mind muscle link will form better, but in terms of building muscle, as long as you are progressing you will gain muscle either way. If you can bench 200 pounds slowly right now, by the time you can bench 250 pounds slowly you will be bigger. Get a good feel for how you like to lift and stick with it for a while, just don’t go crazy either way.

Be careful with how you view Scale Weight

Your scale weight will go up, and it will go down. If you drink a bunch of water while working out it could go up a lot, if you eat a big salty meal, the same thing could happen. The scale can easily lie, but I do love to weigh myself a lot just to see whats going on. Do it first thing in the morning and just weigh yourself often and write it down, but don’t go by any one day. Go by the weeks average. You might very well gain muscle at a rate faster than you are losing fat which will lead to you increasing in weight even though you look skinnier in the waist. This is the best of both worlds, and what we aim to do.

Lastly just don’t stress so much over it, view it as something good in your life

If you do want to get this type of look that is wonderful, but enjoy the process. Don’t stress out about it and think you have to do it. You are doing it because you want to for whatever reason. Whether you decide to use a program or design your own just do it as a fun hobby. Fitness can be a great hobby to have, but when it becomes an obsession it leads to a lot of frustration.

Best of luck to anyone wishing to lose fat and gain some muscle and praise to anyone who made it this far into the article, thanks for reading!

-Kyle

P.S. Genetics will make this type of look a lot easier for people with faster metabolisms, but ultimately it’s the same formula for everyone. This look really is,   Less Fat, a Little Muscle in the right spots, and a spray tan if you want to look like the above picture.

The word BODYBUILDER usually makes you think of massive rippling muscles streaked with huge veins, ultra defined abdominal muscles, an apparent V- shape to the body where shoulders are a lot more wide than the waist, perhaps giant quads each wider than a redwood, and the person probably not wearing something you could go to the grocery store in. Arnold Schwarzenegger is who most people would think of when you say bodybuilder.

So when people see this and want to look like that, they don’t know at the time, but you can’t! Not naturally anyway.

Here is Arnold saying that he took steroids, and he isn’t the only one..they all do.

I just wanted to emphasize again  about steroids because the misconception is that you can look like these guys without steroids and you really can’t. Even with superb genetics for weight lifting, which if you have, then why are you worried about gaining muscle anyway? You would already be BIG!

But, that isn’t really what this post is about ( I just wish everyone knew the truth that 99% of the people you see in magazines and whatnot, are on drugs)

I made a post a while back about what type of look would you like to have, kind of splitting the different body types up…if you want to read about that you can 

>>>Here<<<  ( this ones about Male bodies)

Basically it just goes over how I believe there are different body types and different methods for getting each type of “look”. But what I want to point out is that even though I called one of them the “bodybuilder look”, in truth every one of them is bodybuilding.

As I see it, if you are attempting to gain muscle in any way shape or form and change your body, you are bodybuilding

Who cares if you plan to actually compete or not, you are trying to change your body by doing some form of physical training and thus building your body! So, when I am talking about a bodybuilding program, I pretty much just mean any fitness program out there, unless it only deals in losing fat. Some do, but who wouldn’t want a couple pounds of muscle =).

How do you pick the perfect program when there are so many?

Here is where it’s best to know your goals a bit. What do you truly want out of this type of training? Do you just want bigger biceps to attract the ladies, are you wanting to build up strength and muscle for a sport?Do you need to lose a lot of fat due to your health and want to gain muscle in the process?

Know Thyself!

Some of the wisest of words, but truly a blessing to us right now. Once you know your goal then it’s much much easier to take the steps to get to it.

I’m going to make several posts and link the different methods I think are best for each type of “look” here. For now it may be incomplete, but I’m going to update them as I go.

Goals and how to get to them:

The Lean Muscled Athletic Look-

• Low Body fat, somewhere between 4-10 % would be best for most
• Muscle, but in the right spots and amounts ( less than you think you need)
• Shoulders wider than waist ( I don’t believe in a perfect ratio like some people do, I just think it’s best to have them wider than your waist)
• Abdominal muscled built enough so they are visible and defined

This look does require some dedication, but it doesn’t take nearly as long as you might think. Everyone has a different amount of muscle they will start with and that is the time consumer, but if you train properly even one month of muscle gaining with a low bodyfat will change the way you look dramatically.

The program I am using right now, >>Visual Impact Muscle building<<is pretty much  designed to make you look like this and I highly suggest anyone to give it a try, but there are other ways to get this type of look. I’ll make a post specifically showing what I believe to be the best ways to obtain this look.

• >>>HERE<<<  is the post I did on how to get the muscled athletic look. It has some programs I suggest and some information on how to make your own if you would like, and just a general overview on some of my opinions regarding the look and weight training.

The pro Bodybuilder look

•  Very low body fat in all pictures you actually see ( sometimes lower than 4 percent) along with very low water levels
• The most muscle humanly possible, A LOT OF MUSCLE
• Shoulders are usually wider than waist, but a lot of time abdominal muscles are bulging
• Steroids or a lot of patience, muscle takes a long time to build (99% of the people you see you can’t get to that shape unless your on drugs)

If the naturally muscled athlete look is tough to get, this is 10 times more effort. And I want to clear up misconceptions about what is realistic expectations. By the way you will never look like Jay Cutler from the first picture, even with steroids, unless you are magically genetically gifted like him. The same can be said about Frank Zane in the pic on the right, but at least he doesn’t look so freakishly massive.

Unless you really have some intense motivational reason to look like this and are completely fine taking steroids than I see no reason to push towards it at all. Mainly I am going to make the post on this type of look as a look at what you can expect with and without steroids.

MOTIVATION:

1. The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
2. The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

I don’t know about you, but for me the motivation things usually goes something like this…and it’s always a similar story…

Lets use working out as an example. So, I’ll be watching a movie and I’ll see someone in amazing shape. A good example is Christian Bale in Batman Begins, very impressive physique…which I was watching yesterday.

I’ll see how they look, and BAM that alarm goes off ” Damn, he has an awesome build, if I looked like that I would be on top of the world! I better kick my ass into gear and start doing more!”

So I’ll be filled with a jolt of inspiration and really want to kick it up a notch in all my workouts.

The problem with this kind of inspiration is it doesn’t really last long at all

So you see a way you want to look, it would be awesome if you looked like that, but what is truly driving you to want to look that way? Do you think it would change how people perceive you? Maybe how you would perceive yourself? Do you think it would make you happy?

This actually is why a lot of people end up starting to workout, they see someone they think looks great and want to replicate that look. It’s enough reason to start, but it’s certainly not enough to get you through to the end of your transformation.

Truly all you need to get any type of look you want is enough motivation to keep you consistent, enough willpower to push through the hard parts, and a lot of patience….and perhaps a good amount of Coffee

But I think the first thing you need to find out is WHY are you working out in the first place? Are you trying to improve your health? Do you want to look sexy for guys/girls? Did you just watch Rocky too many times and want to look huge?

But don’t stop there, ask the question twice. So if you answered ” I want to look good to pick up girls” then ask yourself, why don’t you look good enough now?

We all have this magical hope that when we truly accomplish something it’s going to have this amazing snowball effect that makes everything better

If I got a six pack people will think I’m awesome and thus my life will rule! Okay, so maybe it’s not that exaggerated, but it’s more like ” If I lose 10 lbs then men will find me more attractive, thus I will find a man and my whole will improve”

The thing you have to realize is, this is all in your head

You can get the guy right now, even 10 lbs heavier. You just don’t believe you can. You can  talk to the most attractive women in the world right now, you don’t need to have 5 percent bodyfat, or gain 50 lbs of muscle. The easiest way to realize this is when you finally do get to your goal, you’ll see that nothings changed but your mindset. The way you look was making you feel bad about yourself, and lowering your self confidence, but in truth it wasn’t actually doing anything.

What if you are overweight, but completely comfortable with it, you feel amazing about yourself, and you are happy? It wouldn’t be any different than if you were skinny and comfortable with it either.

All I am saying is it’s extremely beneficial and powerful to just find out exactly what the reasons are for why you want to work out, or lose weight or whatever goal it is

When you know the real thing driving your desire for this, then you can better find ways to motivate yourself to do it and you may even find that the way to reach those goals isn’t even through getting in shape at all.

Now I’m not saying don’t work out and that it’s bad to do it, I’m just saying that it’s really helpful to know why you are doing it and make sure it isn’t for the wrong reasons. Working out in various forms can be a ton of fun and healthy at the same time, so it’s not really a negative thing and many times you don’t need any motivation at all to do it.

The real reason you need that powerful motivation is when you are going for a goal that is going to have some rough spots along the road

Lets say you wanted to get big and lean like Mr. Wahlberg here.  Just having fun working out isn’t going to cut it because your body doesn’t want to look like this. It’s going to fight you every single step of the way. Even if you have good genetics, your still going to have to watch what you eat, force yourself to be consistent with training, make sure you got sleep…everything has to be in check. Being so strict about all this is hard to do, and if you don’t have a good enough reason to look like this when what is going to keep you motivated to go through all that stuff?

If you were a guy weight lifting just to look good for some girls, chances are your not going to have the motivation to go through all that pain, and patience just to look like this. If you are a guy who wants to be a bodybuilder and are extremely passionate about weight lifting and dedicating a large portion of his life to always challenging himself in the gym, then you probably can keep going. Especially if your goal is to be a bodybuilder, and you actually really enjoy the act of weight lifting.

Same scenario can be for a girl too ( it can also be for bodybuilding, but most women want to lose weight due to media always hyping up skinny girls)

You saw some Victoria secret ads and you think if you could just lose some weight, you would be so sexy men at the grocery store would be following you around.

That would actually be pretty creepy, but anyway, first off remember just being skinny doesn’t make you sexy. So the initial thought in itself wasn’t complete, but lets say that was your motivation.

You weigh 165 and you need to get down to 120 to look similar to this ideal….well maybe less. I don’t think a lot of these models actually eat food, probably processed vegetable powder.

You start on your diet and you are extremely motivated, but after the first few days of starving yourself you already want to quit. What is the motivating factor keeping you going? I think it was a negative thing motivating you from the get go, because you don’t feel you are attractive enough right now if you think that you need to change to look like the model. You think that if you just change something about yourself it’s going to make you happy, but it wont because the grass really isn’t greener on the other side, you take your problems with you.

Now lets say you decide that for your high blood pressure it’s much healthier for you to lose 25 pounds. This is a a much better reason, and you can easily find a lot of ways to motivate yourself positively. You know it’s really healthy for you to do that, it’s going to help your heart, and the best part is, if you don’t do it you may actually be in trouble. It’s always a lot more enforcing if there is a negative to your current situation if you don’t change and a guaranteed positive to when you do.

You'll feel like this with the right motivation

It’s very easy to find motivation, if your reason for change is a good one!

So just remember:

• Ask yourself , ” Why am I doing this?”
• Ask yourself again, ” Why am I going that?”
• If it’s a good enough reason, then find things that will reinforce your conviction in doing it
• Give reasons why if you don’t do it the situation your in now will be worse
• Constantly tell yourself that you can do it and stay positive about it
• Stay away from people who don’t support you
• When feeling down, watch an uplifting movie or something that reinforces what your trying to do
• Always take it one step at a time, if you can just take this one step, then there will always only be one step!

But most of all, just believe in yourself!

Always know you can accomplish anything you set your mind to, as long as you have a good enough reason to do so.  You can lose weight, gain muscle, run faster, become stronger, whatever you want you can do it. You just need a good enough reason to link positive reinforcements and motivations to.

P.S.….

I’m not saying that wanting to look better isn’t a good enough reason, but for most people it’s just not going to be a strong enough motivator to go through all the rough patches that are going to occur when changing your body. If you can link a better, stronger reason than that I truly think you’ll have a lot more success.

Push Ups, Press Ups, Whatever you want to call them, the very word instills fear into the hearts of many a brave soul, but fear them not!

The military loves em to death, but they don’t fit into many muscle building routines anymore and that’s probably because they don’t provide a challenge for very often once you get the hang of em. This is pretty lame because they are such a beautiful movement that works your whole upper body, can be used to strength, cardio, to show off, and can be done anywhere!

Two things to consider regarding Push Ups: Strength vs Endurance

You can eventually work up to this!

You probably heard people bragging about doing 100 pushups at one time and people crying out, ” OH MY GOODNESS HE/SHE IS SO STRONG, THEY CAN DO 100 PUSHUPS!!!!” This doesn’t make any sense though because once you can do around 15 pushups then adding on anymore doesn’t really require strength, it’s all endurance. It’s like when you are running a mile, your legs can easily hold you up ( well for most people), so when you go run a mile it’s not a feat of strength, it’s just endurance. The more miles, the more endurance, but you still wont be able to squat 50 pounds more than when you started.

Strength is when you can finally do a one armed pushup, or when you can add on weight with a vest or maybe your best friend sitting on your back as you do reps. You might be able to do 100 push ups, but barely do a single one handed one. It’s not to say there is no carry-over, as long as your doing a movement you will get better at it, but if you really want to get better at either thing its much much better to focus on that specific goal.

>>This vid shows how to do a Military Push-Up…Personally I think you should just do it however you feel comfortable doing them, but this will give you a basic idea if you need to know a specific Military one<<

Endurance, how do I work up to the infamous 100 push ups?

The easiest way is doing Push ups, a lot……and yes that sounds pretty lame, but it’s the truth. But that doesn’t mean certain methods aren’t better than others. You will probably not have that much success if you did a typical routine, and every other day did some pushups. The best method is doing them every single day, but not doing a lot of repetitions at any single time.

This is my favorite method for increasing Push Up Endurance::::

Either use a stopwatch, look at a clock, use your phone and set up a timer to go off every 5 minutes, any method you have for knowing 5 minutes have gone by.

Every 5 minutes, do 10-35 Pushups ( all depending on your current skill level)

If you haven’t done this before, it will start out super easy. But trust me, eventually that 5 minutes wont be enough!

Whenever you have some spare time during the day do this, it doesn’t even have to be exact either, just try to keep it around 5 minutes

Do this several days and you will quickly develop a tolerance for pushups and you will be doing more in one day than you have ever done in your life. Just make sure you keep adding reps when it gets too easy. Just slowly add them in.

If you are ever able to do this all day long then imagine the endurance you’ll have!  It would be cool, but due to doing stuff in the day it’s best to do it sessions of however long you can manage. If your doing schoolwork or watching tv then just do it every 5 in between…with the duration of commercials these days you could probably get 2 sets in just on a commercial break.

It all depends on your current skill level and how consistent you are with this, but by the time I could 35 with each 5 minute interval and wasn’t getting super sore the next day, I tried to do 100 at one time and was finally able to do it.

If you keep up with this long enough, you can reach whatever number you want, just remember 5 minutes isn’t set in stone, you can pick whatever is going to work with you on that given day. Consistency is king!

You can actually build an amazing body just doing this

Bruce Lee got his body from movements like the pushup

Lets say all you did was a push up routine like this, as long you consumed enough protein and kept your calories a bit lower, you would look amazing pretty quickly. You wouldn’t end up looking like a bodybuilder, but you would build a nice defined upper body that was very proportional. Add in some sprinting, playing some sports or something and you got your leg work outta the way too. It’s not that hard to get an athletic look, you just gotta be active and watch your calories, protein, and possible carbs.

What if you can’t do 10 push ups or can’t even do 1???!!

Well if you just can’t do 10, then it’s a matter of strength not necessarily endurance. Same thing if you can’t do 1. You need to build up your upper body strength, which is best done with very low reps. You can even do it the same 5 minute interval way, just have your reps very very low, like 2-3 till it start to gets easier. You just need to build up the basic foundation of strength.

If you can’t do 1, then do it on your knees. Just do the same thing on your knees, and work up to getting the strength to do your first real push up. It’s all about consistency, just keep at it and your body will build strength.

Give this a method a shot!

it’s a real fun and simple way of challenging yourself by doing such a high volume of pushups but also getting a lot of rest in between sets. The challenge is just the sheer amount you can end up doing if you keep it up for a period of time. Also it’s interesting to see how you can fit it into daily routines.

Rocky does em one armed