Thanks to eveyone who came out to participate in the Fight Gone Bad Event. We had a pretty good turn out and the event was a lot of fun for those who participated

Workout of the Day
2 min of thrusters
2 min pullups
2 min burpees
2 min row
2 min superman hold
2 min rest between exercises

Strength is King

Fight Gone Bad Tomorrow
Tomorrow's Fight Gone Bad workout will be from 10am to 1pm on Saturday. If you are participating in the workout you can show up anytime between 10am and 1pm to do your workout. If you are not participating in the workout I would encourage you to stop by and cheer on the participants.

A lot of people are wanting to know how they can improve their times for the Fight Gone Bad competition. Just remember this simple concept "Strength is King." The stronger you are the lighter the weights will feel to you. The lighter the weights feel the more reps you will be able to do. Strength is king no matter what you are training for. Strength improves all other physical qualities. So if an athlete comes in and wants to perform better, get them stronger and they will run faster, jump higher, and perform better. If someone wants to lose body fat then strength is still king because muscle tissue burns more calories everyday. Just remember that whether your goal is to perform better, get leaner, or whatever strength is king.

Workout of the Day
8 sets of 30 sec jumprope with 1 min rest between sets

Just a Bite

Many people do not understand that just one bite or sip of the wrong food at the wrong time can ruin a perfectly good meal. For example, if for breakfast you have steak and nuts your breakfast is perfect, but as soon as you have a bite of bread, a sip of orange juice or sugar in your coffee you just messed up the whole meal. That one bite can trigger your body to store most of the meal. You must remember that it is not the calories that we are worried about, it is the hormonal consequence of what we eat that matters the most. Here's what happens, when you eat a protein and fat meal and add in a fast acting carb that one carb stimulates insulin. Insulin acts like a key to open the door to your fat cells allowing all the fat you just ate to be stored. If you can avoid eating carbohydrates that door stays locked and the fat is burned for energy.

Nutrition Class Tonight
Tonight at 7pm we will be having a nutrtition class. The cost for the class is $20, but if you bring a friend then your admission is free.

Workout of the Day
30 seconds of work/30 seconds of rest
Rowing machine
burpees
box jumps
hollow rocks
4 rounds

Nutrition Class
We will be having a nutrition class Thursday night at 7pm. The cost for the class is $20, but if you bring a friend who does not work out with us then it your admission is free.

Fight Gone Bad
The Fight Gone Bad competition this Saturday will be from 10am -1pm. If you are participating you can show up anytime between 10am and 1pm to do the workout. If you would like to participate and have not signed up yet go here.


How do your genes express themselves? We all have genes that can be turned on and off. For example, in some people when they are deficient in Omega 3's their genes express this deficiency in the form of eczema and psoriasis, while in others they may show signs of depression rather than skin problems. Gene expression is a very individualized thing since we all have a different genetic code and different lifestyles. The analogy that I have heard used is that your genes are the gun and your lifestyle is your trigger finger. Your lifestyle determines which genes are expressed and which are not. If you want to keep bad genes from expressing themselves the best way is to eat right, sleep well, be active, and keep you stress levels down.

Workout of the Day
4x6 Shoulder press
4x6 Weighted pullups

3x8 pushpress
3x8 pullups

Build Muscle to Lose Fat

Nutrition Class:
We are going to be having a nutrition class on Thursday night at 7pm. The cost for the class will be $20, but if you bring a friend who does not currently workout with us then your admission is free. A lot of people have been asking for a class on supplements. We will devote some time during this class to answer your supplement questions.

Fight Gone Bad:
The Fight Gone Bad event that we are hosting will be from 10am -1pm this Saturday. If you are a participant you can show up at any time between 10am -1pm to do your workout. Please feel free to bring your friends and family to watch the workouts. If you have not signed up for the workout yet please go here to sign up.

If you are trying to get leaner one of the best things you can do is get stronger. Every pound of muscle that you gain increases your metabolism by 50 calories per day. If you gain 5 pounds of muscle then your metabolism will increase by 250 calories per day. That 5 lbs of muscle will equate to about a half a pound of fat loss per week extra. So if you want to get lean then your first priority should be to build muscle.

Workout of the Day
5 db swings
10 pushups
15 airsquats

How is Your Sleep

One of the most overlooked aspects of getting leaner is the quality of your sleep. If your sleep is not good then it is hard to get lean. So what is good sleep? Good sleep is 8 consecutive hours of sleep without waking up. If you wake up to use the bathroom during the night then that is not good sleep. During your sleep is when your bodies hormones are regulated and that is why it is hard to get leaner without adequate sleep. It is estimated that 68% of the population has a sleeping disorder. There are varying reasons why people have trouble sleeping but most of them come back to nutrition.

Workout of the Day
4x6 Back Squat
3x8 lunge
3x8 good morning

Should You be Taking a Multivitamin?

If you are trying to get leaner then you should be taking a multi vitamin. Since toxins are stored in your fat, when you break fat down the liver gets flooded with toxins that must be detoxified. In order for the liver to detoxify it must have nutrients available to bind to the toxins. If there is a lack a nutrients then fat burning will slow and the body will become toxic. Therefore everyone who is trying to get leaner should be taking a multivitamin. However, not all multivitamins are created equal. One easy way to tell if your vitamin is any good is to check the magnesium source. If the magnesium is in the form of magnesium oxide then it is a cheap supplement that is not very absorbable. When you choose supplements men and women in menopause should always choose a multivitmain that is iron free.

Workout of the Day
4x6 Shoulder press
4x6 pullups

500m row

The Aspargus Test

The asparagus test is something that everyone should do. To perform the test just eat some asparagus and the next time you urinate take notice if there is a different smell. If your urine smells then it means you have a gene that requires a much higher dose of the B vitamins. Right now about 65% of the population has this gene and it is important if you have this gene to supplement with high doses of the B vitamins. The problem with most supplements is that they are not very well absorbed. Part of the reason that most of the B vitamins are not absorbed is that 99% of the population has low stomach acid. The other reason is that most people use low quality supplements. If you can buy it in a store it probably isn't any good. If you have this gene ask me about ways to address your needs.

Workout of the Day
Run 1/4 min then perform 15 db swings + 15 wallballs
3-4 rounds

Zinc

Yesterday, I talked about not being able to absorb your food without proper levels of stomach acid. If you have low stomach acid one of the main minerals that cannot be absorbed is zinc. Since zinc is synergistic to all nutrient it is vital in terms of strength and body composition. If you are deficient in zinc then it effects the testosterone/estrogen balance in the body. Starting next week we will have a really simple test to see if you are deficient in zinc. The odds are that if you are deficient in stomach acid then you are deficient in zinc. If you would like to take the zinc test let me know.

Workout of the Day
Deadlift 4x6
Lunges 4x6

Tabata Thrusters

What are you absorbing

Being at this Biosignature seminar opened up my eyes to something. It is not what you eat that is important but what you absorb. In the class we all had to take a test for stomach acid levels. Stomach acid breaks down your food so that you can absorb it. If you can't absorb your food then all of the good nutrients and any supplements that you are taking are wasted. How do you tell if you have low stomach acid. Well lets just say that everyone in the class failed the test and Charles Poliquin has only seen 2 people in ten years that have passed the test so the odds are pretty good that you would also fail, but some signs are heartburn, burping(fish oil burps), bloating, gas, bad breath, trouble sleeping, low testosterone, and indigestion. If you would like to have your stomach acid levels tested then let me know it is a very easy test to perform.

Workout of the Day
1 min T-pushups
1 min plank
1 min rest
1 min db swing
1 min squat jumps
1 min rest
3 rounds

What is for Breakfast?

The first thing that you put in your mouth in the morning influences your neurotransmitters for the rest of the day. This means that your mood, energy, and sleep are somewhat dictated by the first thing that touches your mouth in the morning. So what should you eat. PROTEIN. In Greek protein means of first importance.

Workout of the Day
Shoulder press 4x6

1 min each
db deadlift, pullups, thrusters, box jumps
2 rounds

NO CLASSES TODAY

THERE ARE NO CLASSES TODAY

Monday will return to a normal schedule other than there will be no 12pm class

Workouts on the Road

Since I am currently traveling I thought I would share some workout ideas for the road that can be done anywhere. Here are some bodyweight exercises that can be done in a hotel room or anywhere squats, jump squats, lunges, reverse lunges, bulgarian lunges, burpees, mountain climbers, pushups, planks, hollow rocks, and supermans. You can take these exercises and put them into a number of different repetition patterns and create an endless supply of challenging workouts.

Workout of the Day
30 sec R leg lunge
30 sec L leg lunge
30 sec squat jumps
30 sec pushups
30 sec plank
rest for 30 seconds between each exercise and perform 4 rounds

Take a step in the right direction

There is a saying that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." When you are trying to achieve a goal whether it is losing weight, gaining muscle, or whatever you must start with a single step. There is one simple question that you can ask yourself, "Did I take a step towards my goal today?" I believe that there is no such thing as homeostasis, so things are always changing. Our bodies are in a constant state of change and if you are not moving towards your goal then you are moving backwards. You don't have to do anything drastic but as long as you are taking small steps in the right direction any goal is attainable. So ask yourself the question today "did I take a step towards my goal today?" If you do this everyday the results will speak for themselves.

Workout of the Day
30 seconds of work/30 seconds of rest
rowing machine
jumprope
mountain climbers
burpees
hollow rocks

Is it your training or your diet

The other day I read a statement in which someone said that overweight people always think it is their diet that is lacking so they look for the latest fad or pill and underweight people looking to gain weight always think that their training is lacking so they look for the latest workout fad. The statement went on to say that most overweight people should instead focus more on their training and the underweight people should focus more on their diet. I have found this to be true. Most people who are looking to lose weight are not active enough. If you are trying to lose weight then you should be exercising a minimum of 5 hours per week and those hours should include some sort of weight training and intervals. On the other hand every person that I have ever worked with that needed to gain weight had a horrible diet. These are usually guys who are looking to add muscle and they are never lazy when it comes to getting their workouts in. They probably workout too much and they are always looking for the latest workout program that is going to get them results. If these individuals would instead focus on their diet they would get much better results.

Workout of the Day
DB complexes
40 seconds of work/20 seconds of rest
air squat
ring rows
db swings
db shoulder press
hollow rocks
5 rounds with 1 min between rounds

Let Your Food Be Your Medicine

"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food." Hippocrates

Hippocrates the father of natural medicine was onto something a long time ago. If your nutrition is good then good health is a result. When you give your body the nutrition that it needs it is able to fight off illnesses. Food is a drug and we must think of it that way. Today it seems that many people have forgotten the simple fact that food is medicine. Many doctors today do not believe that food can cure illnesses because they have come to rely on drugs so much, but the foods we eat definitely affect our health. If you don't believe me then eat a high sugar meal and tell me how you feel in about an hour. Then eat a well balanced meal of lean protein, vegetables, and healthy fat and tell me how you feel. Foods can have dramatic affect on our health, our mood, and our overall well being. Consider this at your meal.


Workout of the Day
Deadlift 4x6

Transition from one exercise to the next with no rest. Perform 3 rounds
Sumo high pull
pullups
pushups

Workout of the Day
4x6 pullups

5 rep db swing
10 rep pushup
15 rep air squat
max rounds in 20 minutes

Overfed and Undernourished

As a society we have a problem in that we are overfed and undernourished. What does this mean? We are eating too many empty calories that do not provide us with the nutrition that our bodies need. The other day Tricia was watching one of those mystery diagnosis medical shows and a young boy was on the show who was diagnosed with scurvy. Scurvy is a disease that presents itself when there is a deficiency in vitamin C and many people thought that scurvy was a thing of the past with all of the access that we have to food these days. The problem is that when we eat junk food we do not give our bodies the nutrition that it needs. So how did this child develop scurvy. His parents said that he wouldn't eat vegetables or fruit so they just let him eat whatever he wanted. Unfortunately, we are seeing several cases of scurvy pop up these days because of our society's poor nutrition habits. I feel that obesity is also a case of being overfed and undernourished. When the body does not have the building blocks that it needs then the body sends out hunger signals, but if more empty calories are eaten then a viscious cycle begins to set in.

Workout of the Day

10 mountain climbers + 20 sumo squats
20 mountain climbers + 20 pushups
30 mountain climbers + 30 step walking lunge
40 mountain climbers + 20 reps bent over db row
2 rounds for time

Advertising

Yesterday, I saw one of the most misleading commercials that I have ever seen. The commercial caught my attention because it was about high fructose corn syrup. There were two ladies having a discussion about high fructose corn syrup and the one lady went on to say that high fructose corn syrup is really not bad because it is all natural and should just be eaten in moderation. This commercial was paid for by the corn growers. If we have ever wondered why America is so fat and unhealthy, commercials like this are the reason. It seems that everything we think we know about nutrition in this country has been a lie that someone has told us in order to make more money. So what is wrong with high fructose corn syrup? High fructose corn syrup is probably one of the worst ingredients that a human can consume. The human body is only made to handle so much fructose and when it is presented in a highly concentrated form the body has no choice but to store it as fat. The other problem with HFCS is that it causes you to be ravenous and over consume food. It does this by two mechanisms 1) it changes the neurotransmitters in your brain which cause the wrong signals to be sent and 2) fructose does not raise insulin in the same way as other sugars which causes the sugar to circulate in your blood stream for longer. While the sugars are circulating in your blood stream you are not registering as full because the nutrients have not been shuttled to the cells. The cells send the message that they are still hungry. Sugar circulating in the blood stream is also a sure fire way to increase the aging process. In my opinion there are two ingredients that everyone should avoid and those are HFCS and anything hydrogenated.

Workout of the Day
1 min work/30 seconds of rest
rowing machine
mountain climbers
jumprope
clean and press R arm
clean and press L arm
ball slams
3 rounds

Aerobics Suck for Fat Loss

Yesterday, I came across an article written by Rachel Cosgrove that just came out. The article was about her training for a triathlon. In the article she shares her experience of training for an endurance event. The overwhelming theme of the article is that she was not happy with what the aerobics did to her body. After 374 training hours she only lost 5 lbs and on top of that she lost her abs. The article goes on to point out why aerobics are not good for fat loss and why high intensity exercise that includes weight lifting and interval training is far superior to cardio for losing body fat. After she finished her triathlon she decided to focus on losing body fat(yes, you read that right she had to focus on losing the body fat she had gained from training for the triathlon). She began a program that had her performing heavy weightlifting and metabolic circuits at high intensities. The results of the program are pretty impressive. You can check out the article here.

Yesterdays Top Performers
Male James
Female Ashley

Workout of the Day
30 seconds thrusters/1 min pullups
repeat for 3 rounds w/1 min between rounds
30 seconds sumo high pull/1 min burpees
repeat for 3 rounds w/1 min between rounds
30 seconds db snatch/1 min db swing
repeat for 3 rounds w/1 min between rounds

Portion sizes

This weekend Tricia and I went to the movies with some friends. Our friends decided to get some snacks from the movie theatre so we were waiting in line with them when we heard the guy in the front of the line say "wow, that's a medium." He was referring to the soda that he ordered. I think it was a 32 oz soda and that was considered to be a medium. Even though it was still probably a rip off for the $5 that he paid for it, I was shocked at how big the serving size was. The portion sizes that we consume today are much too big. We all tend to consume more calories than we think we do because we have gotten used to such large portion sizes. It is very hard to lose weight these days if you are eating in restaurants frequently because they give you so much food. The calories add up in a hurry and most people tend to eat what is on their plates.

Workout of the Day
25 ft farmers walk + 25 air squats x2
50 ft farmers walk + 30 lunges x 2
75 ft farmers walk + 20 rocket jump x2
100 ft farmers walk + 25 mountain climbers x2
2 rounds