The 6-Week Sprinting Solution

by John Romaniello – 2/07/2012

Welcome to the 6-6-6 Sprinting Solution – the 6-week interval-training program that will radically alter your conditioning, increase endurance and power, and drop stupid amounts of body fat.
Interested? Well, before we get into the program, let me tell you how this all started.

I'm Getting Old(er)

It's true. I'm getting old...er. Less than six months from now I'll be 30, and boy does that feel weird. As I crest the rise of the hill leading the way into the twilight of my youth, I'm starting to realize what everyone has always told me is true: it sucks getting old.
Now, before those of you in the 40-50+ crowd jump all over me, let me say that yes, I'm completely aware that by most standards, I'm still quite young.
I guess I should amend my statement to say, "Things change as you get older." I think we can all agree on that, no matter how old we are.
As recently as five years ago, things were a bit easier. Fact is, things were a breeze, especially in the fat loss department.
When I was 21-24, man, I was a beast. I needed exactly three weeks – and three weeks only – to get ready for the summer. That meant if beach season started in June, I didn't really have to start prepping until sometime in May.
I didn't know how good I had it.
This year, I had to start my summer prep in late March. Even with my advanced fat loss workouts and my knowledge of diet, it still took me about 6-8 weeks to get into the extreme lean shape that I like to maintain for the summer.
To try to figure out what the deal was, I pulled out my training journals from the past several years and compared my summer prep.
The first thing that jumped out at me was my diet. I used to eat the same thing every damn day! The foods were all healthy and even tasted good, but my culinary limitations certainly put a clamp on any kind of variation.
But that wasn't the answer. While I enjoy a broader spectrum of foods today, my overall diet is very similar in terms of calories and macronutrients. I eat more foods, but I'm not eating more food.
If anything, my diet has gotten better. I know a lot more advanced fat loss techniques than I did five or six years ago, and have tweaked practices like intermittent fasting, cheat days, and carb/calorie cycling to achieve impressive transformations with hundreds of soldiers in the growing Roman Empire.
Looking more closely, the difference between what I did and what I was doing was sprinting. Back in the day, I used to sprint three times per week, without fail. Every. Single. Week.
Now, I sprint about once per week.
However, it's not quite that simple. While I sprint less often today, I've taken that into account in how I train today, and the added activity from my workouts more than makes up for it.
This led me to ask, "Is there something special about sprinting that helps me lose fat so quickly?
Only one way to find out, of course.

Return to the Track

The next week, I sprinted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, doing traditional HIIT/Tabata style workouts. It went pretty well; felt a bit like Ol' Roman lost a step or two, but I guess I shouldn't expect to hold onto my 40-yard dash time forever.
I did this for two weeks. Then, Saturday morning of the second week, I got up and had a serious problem.
Or perhaps, I woke up, because I certainly didn't get up – I had a hard time getting up most of the day. My hamstrings, glutes, and lower back were killing me, although I'd been aggressively foam rolling and stretching.
I got some soft tissue work done – massage and ART – and thought I'd be good for Monday. I was excited to get back to it because, to be honest, I was getting leaner already. I guess there is something special about sprinting after all.
Well, Monday rolled around, and during my warm up, I damn near felt my hamstring pull off my femur. Why did this happen?
This brings us back to the "I'm getting older" matter. It means that I can't recover as quickly.
Add to that another problem: I'm too good at it.
Between football and track, I learned how to truly sprint, not just jog really fast. I know the techniques, I understand stride, and I'm a power-based runner.
All of which means that when I sprint, I do it correctly – I use a lot of muscle and generate a lot of force. While that's probably what makes sprinting so effective for me, it also makes it very taxing.
Herein lies the problem. Sprinting seems to have an almost magical effect on fat loss, but the better you are at it, the more careful you have to be. If you're an advanced trainee, there's a threshold that you can't cross without greatly impeding your ability to recover.
I set forth to figure out how I could fix it and get shredded like when I was a kid.
I did a lot of experiments, ranging from decreasing the length of my sprints and just doing more of them, to packing all my sprinting into one day (bad idea).
I managed to find what works the best – a happy medium of incredible results, paired with a set up that allows for total recovery.
I mean total recovery. Not only will this sprint set up allow you to recover in a way that it won't interfere with subsequent sprint sessions, you won't even mess up your weight training workouts – even if it's a leg workout on the same day!
The secret is frequency.
The more often you train, the better your recovery – to a point. You still need to rest. In this program, you'll be sprinting six times per week.
If this all sounds counterintuitive given my injury woes from sprinting three times per week, consider this little wrinkle: in training, whenever you increase frequency, you have to adjust but (not necessarily decrease) volume.
In a weight-training context, if you normally bench for ten sets on Monday and wish to increase your frequency, you could split up benching over two days, say five sets on Monday and Thursday.
Now, instead of just doing five sets on each day, you could try six. Your total volume goes up, but your daily volume goes down.
Taking it a step further, you could do four sets, three days per week. Finally, if you want to take it all the way, you could do three sets, five days per week. Your total is 15 sets – 50% more volume – but spread over a greater time.
Because you're resting and never hitting total exhaustion, you can actually perform more work over the week. Furthermore, you could also gradually increase the weight to increase results.
Understanding this principle, I began applying it to sprinting. And what do you know, it worked. Over the course of a few weeks, I came up with:

The 6-6-6 Sprinting Solution

6 sprints
6 days per week
6 weeks.

Bam. It's that simple.
Back when I used to do full sprint workouts three times per week, I'd perform 10 sprints per workout, for a total of 30 sprints per week. Each of these was a full-out sprint, lasting 20 seconds, with 10 seconds of rest in between.
Pretty obvious why it was so challenging, huh?
I decided to up the frequency and keep the volume moderate. I wanted to sprint every day, as I predicted that this would allow me to drastically lower the volume to allow for recovery.
After experimentation, I found that I could sprint six days per week with no issue.
Then came the volume. I began with five sprints per day, meeting my total of 30 sprints per week. At 20 seconds each, it would still be a challenge, but I thought I could do it.
Well, it worked for a bit, but I started to feel burnt out again.
I decided to look at volume a bit more deeply. I started looking at my total week work time; that is, my total amount of time spent sprinting.
In my initial model of three days per week and 10 sprints, I was sprinting for a total of 200 seconds per day, or 600 seconds per week.
In my first version of sprinting six days per week, that was simply divided over six days instead of three. That is, five sprints of 20 seconds for a total of 100 seconds per day, or a total of 600 seconds per week.
It was good, but I still felt like I wasn't recovering well enough. That's because, like you, I simply wasn't accustomed to daily sprinting. My legs needed more time to recover.
So it was back to the lab again, this time to see if the workload could be tweaked. I reasoned (correctly) that if I allowed myself to build up to the total time workload, I could not only achieve 600 seconds, but also perhaps more – all while burning fat and allowing for adequate recovery.
I switched the rest periods to allow for optimal recovery during each workout, giving me the "space" to make progress from week to week.
All told, this new program would give me the best of all worlds – the benefits of daily sprinting (constantly elevated metabolic rate, daily caloric burn), as well as built-in progression, meaning that while I'm forcing adaptation from increasing workload, I'm staying ahead of the adaptation curve.
Increases in fat loss, aerobic capacity, and overall athleticism. All with minimal time and a small daily commitment. Not too shabby.
Okay, enough talk. Let's get to the workouts!

The Triple 6 Workouts

• The number in the work column of the tables below represents your work time, and the number in the rest column is your rest time. If you see "10" and "20" in those columns respectively, that means sprint for 10 seconds and rest for 20 seconds.
• These workouts are done on a treadmill, which allows for convenience with both performance and timing. While you can do these as outdoor sprints, you'll run into the issue of clock-watching.
• Sprinting on a treadmill is a bit tricky. Be careful, and be sure to use the handrails as you jump on and off. When you're resting, simply grab the handrails and jump onto the side rails of the treadmill. To jump back on, grab the handrails and start sprinting again. Maintain your grip on the handrails for the first second or two.
• If you choose to train outside, my recommendation would be to sprint for distances instead of times. Take the given time and multiply it by 8; that's the distance you'll run in yards. So a 10-second sprint becomes an 80-yard sprint. Your rest period is the amount of time it takes to briskly walk or jog back to the starting point.
• Each week, do a single sprint workout, six days per week. The workouts are structured to be progressive, allowing each week to build on the previous week.
• If at any point you feel like the workout is too easy, simply increase the speed or incline on the treadmill – not the time. The time is how we measure progress week to week, so increasing your sprints because you feel strong one day is going to mess with the program.
• Ideally, do these workouts first thing in the morning. If you're going to be training in the morning, sprint first and train after.
• Stretch before and after. Stay hydrated. Insert other disclaimers. Don't be an idiot and hurt yourself.

On to the show!

Week 1

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	20	10
2	10	20	5	10	10
3	15	15	6	10	50

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 85 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 510 seconds

Notes on Week 1: You'll notice that in this week you're sprinting for a total of 510 seconds, which is a great start. However, the important part here is the set up. You're never going to dig yourself into too deep of a hole, because the rest periods are structured to allow you a nice bit of recovery.
There are only two sprints lasting 20 seconds – one when you're fresh, and one when you've rested for a "long" period of 15 seconds. More importantly, each of those 20 second sprints is followed by a short sprint of only 10 seconds. This short follow up sprint won't tax you too much, so you can recover more effectively on subsequent rest periods.
Overall, this will break you in and allow for some nice fat loss. Week one is also a good gauge of where your weaknesses may reside.
If at the end of the workout you're winded, we've got some issues and you should repeat this. On the other hand, if you're not winded but having trouble closing out some of the sprints, that may be an issue with local fatigue, and will work itself out over the week.

Week 2

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	15	15
2	10	20	5	15	15
3	15	15	6	10	50

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 85 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 510 seconds

Notes on Week 2: During the second week of the program, you'll notice that your total sprint times are the same. Where's the progression from week one?
While your work time is unchanged, the structure of the workouts is what makes this a bit harder. You only have a single 20-second sprint here, followed by a short 10-second sprint. However, from there you have to deal with three 15-second sprints in a row, all with equal rest periods. This forces higher performance with less rest.
While you're not doing more overall work than Week 1, you're allowed less recovery during the latter part of the workout. This will help increase work capacity and prepare you for more total work in the coming week.
Moreover, having multiple "long" sprints helps build local endurance in your legs, ensuring that as you progress in the program, tired legs won't hamper you.

Week 3

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	15	15
2	15	15	5	15	15
3	15	15	6	10	50

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 90 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 540 seconds

Notes on Week 3: This week, we progress in a few different areas.
First, you'll notice that the total work time increases to 90 seconds of total sprinting per day. While five seconds may seem a small difference, when we're talking sprints, every little bit helps.
Looking at the structure, you can see how the difficulty will escalate. The short 10-second sprint and 20-second rest combo is gone, meaning that your longest rest period is now at the very end of the workout.
Instead of being able to recover to any real degree, you jump into 15/15 alternations for the majority of the workout.
Although it's only a 1:1 work/rest combo, it's still physically exhausting and serves to improve cardiovascular endurance while burning fat.
This also begins to draw on the enhanced local endurance in your legs that was built during the first three weeks.

Week 4

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	10	20
2	20	10	5	15	15
3	10	20	6	15	45

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 85 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 510 seconds

Notes on Week 4: Again, we have a week where there's no increase in total training volume, but rather changes in structure.
Week 4 introduces the first appearance of two 20-second sprints back to back. This is exceptionally challenging, particularly with only 10 seconds of rest in between.
Thankfully, by this point you have a lot of experience with doing 15-second sprints back to back, so you're prepared for it.
The structure here is hard in the beginning, then a bit soft in the middle – two 10-second sprints with 20 seconds of rest isn't hard.
In many ways, this week is almost a "deload" week. It's easier than previous weeks, and serves to prepare you for the upcoming long sprints back to back.

Week 5

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	15	15
2	20	10	5	15	15
3	10	20	6	15	45

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 95 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 570 seconds

Notes on Week 5: This week workload goes up again, but that's not the only way things get more difficult.
Along with increasing sprint time to 95 seconds per day, you're also packing the seconds closer together with less rest.
As with Week 4, the long sprints are in the front; however, this time you only have a single 10-second sprint/20 second rest combo, followed by three 15/15 bouts to finish off the workout.
You're being forced to increase work output with diminished recovery time. You'll never fully recover, and each sprint will take it out of you, making subsequent sprints even harder.
Of course, the end result is increased fitness and decreased fatness.

Week 6

Sprint	Work	Rest	Sprint	Work	Rest
1	20	10	4	15	15
2	20	10	5	10	20
3	15	15	6	20	40

Cooldown: 4 min walk
Optional: 15 min incline walk for extra fat burning
Total Sprint Time for the Workout: 100 seconds
Total Sprint Time for the Week: 600 seconds

Notes on Week 6: This week, we finally get to the goal of sprinting for 100 total seconds per day, totaling 600 per week.
However, unlike my first shot at this, you won't be burned out because you'll have prepared for it over the previous weeks – while losing fat!
With Week 6, it's all work and no play. You've got two 20-second sprints in the front. This time, there's no 10-second recovery sprint followed by 20 seconds of rest.
No sweet air – just a double dose of 15-second bad boys to follow it up.
After that, you finally get a break with a 10-second sprint. After 20 brief seconds of rest, however, you're right back into the grind, finishing out strong with a 20-second sprint of agony.
By the end of the workout you'll be cursing my family for six generations in either direction. You'll also be burning fat and getting into the best cardiovascular shape of your life.
Week 6 can be performed for up to two additional weeks (stretching the program to a total of 8 weeks) before you need to take a week off and rest.
Provided you practiced some dietary diligence, by this time you should also have an adorable litter of six round and fuzzy abdominal muscles snuggled up neatly above your belly button. In honor of the efficacy of this program, please name the cutest of the bunch Roman.

Other Training and Odds and Ends

Of course, you'll want to do some other training outside of just sprints during the next six weeks, so it's important that we briefly cover that.
While the 6-6-6 program can be done in concert with nearly any training program, some are a better fit than others. The best training program would be a full body fat loss workout, done 2-3 times per week.
First, a fat loss workout is going to help maximize the effects you're looking for with the program in the first place (duh). Second, a full body program is very much in the same vein as the 6-6-6 program itself – frequent stimulation, but lower daily volume.
This means that you can do a full body program with no modifications, despite the fatigue and compromised recovery you're likely to have from the sprinting.
Here's the workout I recommend while following the 6-6-6 Sprinting program:

	Exercise	Sets	Reps
A1	Barbell Push Press	1	8
A2	Pull-up with 2-second pause	1	6-8
A3	Alternating DB Lunge	1	8*
A4	Single-Leg Glute Bridge with 3-second pause	1	8*
A5	Bodyweight Plank	1	45 sec.
A6	DB Floor Press	1	12
A7	Bent Over Barbell Row	1	10
A8	Goblet Squat	1	6-8

* per leg
Rest 10-20 seconds between exercise.
Perform this circuit four times, resting 2-3 minutes between circuits.

Remember that despite the short daily workout, sprinting is taxing, and should be given top priority, at least for six weeks. Therefore, while the above workout is effective, it's designed to work alongside the sprints, which is why the leg volume is toned down. As long as you choose appropriate weights and move briskly, this brief circuit will shred off fat while keeping your strength levels up.
For those who wish to continue on with their regularly scheduled training, the obvious modifications concern leg training.
First, on days where you train legs, sprinting will be optional. If you choose to sprint on your leg training days (masochist), sprint first and reduce your weights. Period. Don't be a tough guy, and don't think you're smarter than ol' Roman. Reduce the weight, and do the sprints first.
The other mandatory change to make is to avoid sprinting the day after your leg training. You need one day to recover. Take that time to stretch, do some extra foam rolling, and read my blog.

Wrap Up

In a perfect world, we'd all grow old gracefully and become more distinguished versions of our youthful selves while not losing an ounce of our youthful athletic ability; like George Clooney with Reggie Bush's six-pack and 40-yard dash time.
Unfortunately, Father Time catches up with all of us, and while we can't stop the clock, we can slow that fucker down some. Sprinting – along with other activities that require natural athleticism – is a great place to start.

Wikio

12 Reasons You’re Not Losing Fat | How to Build Muscle, Gain Strength & Become a Better Athlete

1) You’re Eating Too Many Carbs

This should be pretty obvious to most people by now, but there are still the old die-hards out there who swear that everyone should be consuming two grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight every day while maintaining a low fat intake. Load up on whole grains and fruit while cutting down on healthy, essential sources of fat like grass fed beef they’ll tell you.

Anyone experienced in physique transformation knows this is nonsense.Most people have a terrible tolerance for carbs, shitty insulin sensitivity and simply don’t do enough physically demanding work to warrant too many carbs. If you want to get lean cutting carbs is usually one of the first and most important steps you need to take. That doesn’t mean you can’t have any but you need to make smart choices and they need to be taken in at the right times and cycled properly.

2) You’re Eating Carbs at the Wrong Time

If you’re above 20% body-fat pretty much any time is the wrong time. In that case I would only recommend vegetables and possibly some post workout potatoes or a once per week refeed. When you get down to 15% you can increase the amount of carbs in the post workout meal or the weekly refeed. Everyone else should limit carb consumption to post workout and night time, as per The Renegade Diet rules. During the day you want to be alert and focused, which is one reason why you don’t want to load up on starchy carbs during this time. Save for them for the night time when you want to optimize serotonin production and rest, relax and repair.

3) You’re Eating Too Much Fat

Some people cut carbs and assume that they’re good to go and there’s nothing else to worry about. Unfortunately, the low/no carb diet isn’t as much fun as Dr. Atkins made it out to be. You can’t just eat pounds of bacon and mayonnaise with reckless abandon and think that you’ll magically end up ripped. Fat contains calories; nine per gram to be exact. At the end of the day total calories still matter, and if you’re eating more than you burn you’re never going to get ripped. Please don’t mistake this as my advocating a low fat diet. That’s just as bad, if not worse, than eating too much fat. A bare minimum of 20% of your calories should come from healthy fats like pastured egg yolks, wild caught salmon, grass fed beef and coconut oil to ensure optimal health. Just be careful about going overboard with it and thinking that low carbs automatically leads to single digit body-fat. You still need to keep a handle on things like total calories.

4)You’re Not Eating Enough Protein

In my experience it’s usually only females who are guilty of this but guys can make this mistake on occasion as well. The average female who can’t lose body-fat usually eats a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with an egg. One… single… egg.

Then she’ll have a sandwich for lunch with four ounces of lean turkey. For dinner it will be a salad with low fat dressing and four ounces of chicken or fish. Although, in all honesty they may skip the protein all together and just have a salad for either lunch or dinner. Let’s assume she weighs 135 pounds. Most experts would agree that she would need to consume at least 100 grams of protein per day, if not a gram per pound, which would equal 135 grams. Each ounce of protein is around 4.5 grams of protein. So in this example she had 36 grams combined with lunch and dinner plus the six grams from the egg. So that’s a total of 42 grams, which falls just a wee bit shy of where she needs to be.

Females often freak out when you tell them to eat more than six ounces of protein at a sitting but when you break down the numbers for them and reveal just how many calories they’re eating it should make more sense. If they had eight ounces of protein three times per day it would 108 grams of protein. That’s only 432 total calories. Add in the fat and it’s still not that much.

People who eat a sufficient amount of protein usually end up having an easier time getting ripped than those who don’t. Make sure you’re getting enough.

5) You’re Drinking Too Many Protein Shakes

There are two problems associated with drinking shakes when you’re trying to get ripped. First of all, whey protein can raise insulin levels, as I have been telling people since the mid 90’s. If you’re trying to get lean you don’t want insulin to be flowing like the Nile all day. You want a nice insulin surge post workout but the rest of the day you want it under control. That’s why The Renegade Diet limits the intake of whey protein to very small amounts during most of the day and only allows a larger amount post workout or at night.

The second problem with drinking too many shakes is that they are so easy to digest that you don’t really burn any calories when you eat them. When you chew down some salmon and broccoli your body works harder to digest that food and you burn more calories during the digestion process. When you drink something that is so easily digested, like a protein shake, your body does almost no work in the process.

So, when getting ripped is your main goal, limit your shake intake and chew as many calories as you can.

6) Your Liver is Over Stressed

This is usually the last thing people think of when embarking on a fat loss diet but it can sometimes be the most important. Everything that goes into or on your body has to be processed by the liver. That means all food, alcohol, suntan lotion, environmental pollutants, etc. If you are constantly exposing yourself to this kind of stuff and overstressing the liver fat loss will be much more difficult to come by. Cut out booze, stop eating grain-fed, chemical laden meat and incorporate some regular periods of intermittent fasting to give the liver a break and you will find your rate of fat loss is noticeably faster.

7) You’re Eating Nuts

I love nuts. I mean, who doesn’t? Give me a bag of pistachios or cashews and I won’t look up till the whole thing’s gone. The problem is nuts have a ton of calories. When you’re dieting for fat loss the rules are usually the opposite of those followed by skinny hardgainers trying to gain size. Those guys want the most calorically dense foods possible. Fat loss dieters do not. You’re better off filling up on nutritionally dense foods that don’t pack a lot of calories, like green vegetables. If you’re dieting you need to limit your nut consumption to about ten almonds per serving. No too many people can eat ten almonds. Most people eat ten handfuls. If you are strictly tracking and calculating everything all day and you want to load up on nuts at certain times I suppose you could but I wouldn’t recommend it. Nuts can be very problematic for a lot of people, especially those with digestive or auto immune issues. As Paleo Solution author Robb Wolf has noted, nuts should be used the same way you use condiments- sparingly.

I should also add, and this is strictly my opinion, meaning it has NOT been proven and posted on Pubmed… nut butters seem to be easier for most people to digest than actual whole nuts. Just something to consider.

8) You’re Eating Fruit

“What?! You’re telling people not to eat fruit!? Everyone knows that it’s impossible to get fat from eating too much fruit!”

Yeah, yeah I know, that’s why physique competitors eat so much fruit and why all fat loss experts who specialize in getting people shredded recommend such high quantities of it. In our hunter gatherer days fruit was nothing like what you see in the supermarket today. Berries were small, dark and bitter; not the huge sugar sacks most people consume these days. Don’t get me wrong, fruit is healthy and can be eaten by lean individuals in limited amounts but any type of excessive fructose (a sugar found in fruit) consumption will lead to fat gain. Fructose can only be processed by the liver and once liver glycogen stores are full the excess gets converted to triglycerides and stored as body-fat. If you want to get ripped cut fruit completely for a while or limit it to one to two small servings per day. Just be sure to really up the vegetable consumption so you can keep your vital nutrient uptake where it needs to be.

9) You’re Not Training Heavy

When you want to lose body-fat the first inclination is often to crank up the reps and cut the rest periods. I actually have no problem with fairly low rest periods. But not if you’re used to resting three minutes between sets and all of the sudden cut them down to thirty seconds because you decided it was time to get shredded you’ll be in trouble. That never works. All that happens is your weights start plummeting on every exercise and you get weaker and smaller. High reps have the same effect.

When dieting, the primary role of strength training is to maintain muscle mass. That is the single most important thing. Don’t use it as your primary “fat burning” activity… UNLESS you are seriously overweight. If you need to lose more than fifty pounds or so that would probably be fine (although please don’t ever do any of the bullshit you see on those fat camp TV shows). Females can actually get something out of metcon workouts in the right situation as well. The caveat, however, is that that they need to be strong and actually have some muscle mass. If you take a weak female with no muscle and give her a silly metcon circuit she won’t usually get much out of it because she’s too weak to produce enough force. Females should get strong first before they attempt that type of training.

If you’re a guy and are trying to lose 10-20 pounds of body-fat without losing all your muscle mass in the process you should use strength training as a way to maintain size and strength; nothing more, nothing less. So the same principles that helped you get big and strong apply when dieting. Keep the reps low and the resistance high.

10) You’re Overdoing Cardio

Traditional forms of cardio are largely useless for fat loss. But useless is even okay, it’s when it starts to be counterproductive that we have a real problem. Excessive amounts of cardio lead to an overproduction of cortisol which leads to more abdominal fat and numerous health problems. If you want to do cardio that won’t actually hurt you and could do you some good, go for a long walk. No self respecting man should ever be spotted on an elliptical machine.

Sled work builds muscle, burns fat and is irreplaceable

11) You’re Not Running Sprints or Doing Sled Work

Dieting is the most important thing for fat loss. After that you should be doing some form of strength training to maintain your muscle mass. When you have those to things dialed in you’ll want to add in some type of sprinting or sled work. There is nothing more effective for fat loss. See all wide receivers, defensive backs, sprinters, soccer players, etc. for proof. Two or three 20-40 minute sprint or sled sessions per week will be enough for most people.

Don’t have a sled? 

12) You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep

When you’re short on sleep your insulin sensitivity decreases and your cortisol goes up. Both things lead to less than optimal fat loss. You also miss out on the critically important Growth Hormone boost that comes each night during deep sleep. If you want to lose more fat you have to get more sleep. Most people will ignore this and some of you are probably reading this at 2am. Unfortunately this just might be the most important thing on the whole list. More sleep improves EVERYTHING. Make it a priority.

Wikio

Exercises You've Never Tried: Beach Body Edition

by Ben Bruno – 2/01/2012

I have a confession to make: I love lifting weights, but I don't enjoy training the beach muscles.
It's not that I hate bodybuilding or training arms – I love all training – but if given the choice, I'd pick legs ten times out of ten.
My hierarchy would probably look something like this:

1. Legs
2. More Legs
3. Back
4. Wander aimlessly around the gym
5. Chest/Shoulders
6. More Back
7. Read a magazine
8. Core
9. Clip my toenails
10. Arms

Most typical upper body exercises bore me to tears. I just can't get hyped up for bench presses, pushdowns, and curls like I can for squats, lunges, and pull-ups.
Call me crazy.
One thing that helps make upper body days more fun, and consequently keeps me pushing hard, is experimenting with different exercise variations. Here are some upper body exercises that even I like.

1. Rotational One-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press

When I first saw the one-arm dumbbell bench press, I didn't give it the respect it deserves. It didn't look particularly hard, so I unassumingly grabbed the same weight I'd use for a regular dumbbell bench press.
Bad move. Anyone that's tried the exercise before knows where this is going.
On the first rep, I literally tipped to the side and fell off the bench, dropping the dumbbell like a total jackass and causing a scene. I knew immediately I was going to like this one.
While it's essentially an upper-body pushing exercise to work the chest, shoulders, and triceps, you'll learn fast that it's really a full body exercise. To be successful, you must create massive tension throughout your legs, core, and even the opposite arm.
You'll want to start out light to avoid my embarrassing fate, but interestingly, after a few tries to get the hang of it, you'll find you're able to use more weight unilaterally than you could bilaterally.
I like to start with a neutral grip at the bottom and pronate my wrist as I press. This feels great on the shoulders, and the rotation allows for a better contraction in my chest.

2. Ring Flies

These are brutal, but if you can pull them off, they'll fry your chest like no other. I first tried them after seeing a picture of Larry Scott doing them on some badass old-school chain rings.
This is an extremely advanced exercise, so don't just jump right into trying it if you don't have any experience on the rings. Doing so will inevitably lead to either a shoulder injury or a face plant, neither of which you want.
Make sure you can first knock out at least 25 ring push-ups to get acquainted with the inherent instability. From there, progress to flies with your arms bent at approximately a 90-degree angle. You may even want to do these on your knees at first.
Once you're comfortable with those, it's time to progress to full flies. Be sure to maintain a slight bend in your elbows to protect your shoulders and keep the tension on your chest.

If you get comfortable with full flies (and by comfortable I mean proficient – I can assure your pecs won't be comfortable), give ring "fly-aways" a shot. I got the idea for these from a recent Livespill from TC where he talked about a similar concept using dumbbells.
You're basically going to do a drop set going in the reverse order of the progression I laid out to work up to full flies: five full flies, five bent-arm flies, and five pushups, all in succession with no rest. Superset that with five minutes of lying on the floor, hating life.

Word of caution: If you find full flies bother your shoulders, stick to bent-arm flies. If those still bother your shoulders, stick to push-ups or find a different exercise. They're not for everyone.

3. Ring Push-up/Fly Combo

Like the name suggests, one arm does a push-up while the other arm does a fly. You'll want to place more weight on the arm doing the push-up and de-load the arm doing the fly as much as possible. It may help to think of it as a modified one-arm pushup where you reach the other arm straight out to the side. Alternate between arms each rep.
Confused? I don't blame you. Check out the video below.

The unilateral nature of the exercise may lead you to believe it's significantly more difficult than bilateral ring flies, but from a pressing standpoint, it's actually slightly easier since the arm doing the push-up is supporting the majority of the load where the lever arm is shorter. The "fly" arm simply provides some assistance to counter the rotational demands of the one-arm push up, and gets a decent stretch and bit of activation in the process.
From a core standpoint, however, it's much harder. The unilateral nature of the exercise introduces a big anti-rotational stability component since you have to brace extremely hard to avoid twisting toward the arm doing the fly.

4. Supinated Ring Chins

Some bodybuilding coaches spout that chin-ups are the best biceps exercise going and no direct biceps work is required. Others say to build mammoth bone-crushing pythons, you need to devote an entire day (or two or three) per week to arms and do every type of curl imaginable.
I'm somewhere in the middle.
I love chin-ups as much as anybody, while curls are the absolute bane of my training existence.
I dropped curls all-together about two years ago, and have just been doing a heavy diet of chin-ups and rows. In that time, my arms have stayed about the same size while the rest of my body has grown, leading me to believe that chin-ups obviously work the biceps to a large degree and are sufficient if your goals are more performance-based, but probably aren't enough if you hope to start selling tickets to the gun show.
Here's the thing: it depends largely on how you do the chin-ups.
For instance, I usually use a shoulder-width grip (often wider) and think of my arms as being hooks while my back does all the work. I also come to full extension at the bottom of every rep and do them explosively while maintaining control of my body (i.e. no swinging).
Interestingly, the better I've become at chin-ups, the less I feel them in my biceps. Fact is, when I do feel my biceps working a lot, I take it as a sign I'm not retracting my scapulae as I should be.
However, you can easily tweak them to hone in on the biceps. The best way I've found is with close-grip supinated ring chin-ups.
Place the rings as close together as possible and take a supinated grip. Perform the reps slower than normal on both the concentric and eccentric and stop just short of full extension at the bottom to keep constant tension on the biceps. It's important to be strict with these.

If you don't have rings, you can do them with just a bar, although the rings definitely add something to it from a biceps standpoint. You'll find that towards the bottom of the rep, the rings will start to twist and your biceps will be forced to kick into overdrive to keep that supinated wrist position.
These are a lot tougher than they look, so if it's too much at first, you can also try a similar concept using inverted rows instead.

Doing reps like this will invariably shortchange your back to some degree, so do them after your regular chin-up or inverted row workout to finish off your arms.

5. Super Slow Chin-ups

The explanation for these is simple, but they're far from easy. Do a close-grip chin-up as slowly as you can. That's it.
Shoot for 20-30 seconds on the concentric and 30-40 seconds on the eccentric to start. If you can do that, add some weight. If that's too much, then just go as slowly as you can.
I also like to do a static hold at the top.

Use a supinated grip for more biceps emphasis or a neutral grip to target the brachialis. Either way, it'll also blast your forearms and help build tremendous grip strength.
Save this for the tail end of your workout and just do one painstaking rep. Trust me, if you're doing it right, that's all you'll be able to muster.

6. Bodyweight Triceps Extensions

This is an awesome triceps exercise that, when done correctly, also smokes the core.
TC wrote about doing these in a Smith machine in a Livespill and while I like that exercise too, I prefer doing them using suspension straps for two reasons.
First, you can get a bigger range of motion. When you use a fixed bar, you're forced to do the exercise like a traditional skullcrusher where you bring your forehead to the bar. With straps, you can extend your arms forward slightly as you drop down so that at the bottom, your hands are actually behind your head. This enhances the stretch on the long head of the triceps and takes stress off the elbows.
Second, the straps allow you to rotate your hands freely as you move through the rep, making it more shoulder-friendly and increasing the contraction in your triceps.

To get the full benefit for your core, it's imperative that you keep a straight line from your feet to your head. There will be a tendency to want to pike at the hips, so you'll need to squeeze your glutes and brace your abs to prevent that from happening. It should feel similar to the sensation you get from an ab wheel rollout. If it doesn't, you're probably not doing it right.
This is a lot tougher than it looks, so start with the straps fairly high at first (approximately chest level) and work your way down.

7. Reverse Grip Dumbbell Floor Press

Perform this exercise just as you would a regular dumbbell floor press, only supinate your hands as you press. At the bottom your palms will face each other, while at the top they'll point back behind you.

Where you feel this exercise will depend on your set up. If you use a wider grip, you'll feel it more in your chest, whereas a closer-grip will put more emphasis on the triceps. I prefer a close grip because I find a wide grip puts undue stress on my shoulders, elbows, and wrists.
You can also try holding a supinated position throughout the rep, but I prefer to rotate to allow for a neutral, shoulder-friendly position closer to the chest.
Think about pressing the dumbbell down towards your feet rather than up over your face like you might in a typical barbell bench press. You obviously won't be able to, but having that cue in your mind makes the exercise go more smoothly.
Start with about 50% of the weight you can use for a regular dumbbell press and go from there.

8. The "Anti" Press

In response to Dr. Stuart McGill's research regarding spinal health, much of the new-age core training focuses on "anti" movement stability training: anti-rotation, anti-extension, and anti-lateral flexion. I called this exercise the "anti press" because it addresses all those categories simultaneously.
Grab the handle of a suspension strap and face sideways. Lean out so that your body is at about a 60% angle to the floor. Now brace your core to keep from twisting and press straight out until your arms are fully extended. This part of the motion is similar to a Pallof press you might do with bands or cables and works anti-rotation.
From there, bring your arms straight overhead and pause for a brief second. At this point, you're focusing on anti-extension and anti-lateral flexion. Rinse and repeat for the desired reps.

Along with building tremendous core stability, this also assists with shoulder strength and mobility. I'm always looking for ways to kill as many birds as I can with one stone and this exercise fits the bill nicely.
It's easy to progress or regress simply by adjusting your foot position and/or the length of the strap. The further out your feet are from the anchor point and the shorter the strap is, the easier it will be. Move your feet more underneath the anchor point and increase the length of the strap as you get better.
This is a very advanced exercise, so you may want to start with just the overhead portion and see how that goes first.

Conclusion

If you're one of those people that when asked how you're doing always responds with "same shit, different day," some of these exercises may be just what you need to spice up your gym life and get growing again. Don't go throwing all the basics out the window, but use these as supplements to reignite your training vigor or to help break through a rut or plateau.
Have fun, and be sure to save me a seat at the gun show.
Actually, don't bother. I'm pretty sure I'll be training legs that day.

Wikio

Exercises You've Never Tried: Beach Body Edition

Exercises You've Never Tried

Beach Body Edition

by Ben Bruno – 2/01/2012

I have a confession to make: I love lifting weights, but I don't enjoy training the beach muscles.

It's not that I hate bodybuilding or training arms – I love all training – but if given the choice, I'd pick legs ten times out of ten.

My hierarchy would probably look something like this:

1. Legs
2. More Legs
3. Back
4. Wander aimlessly around the gym
5. Chest/Shoulders
6. More Back
7. Read a magazine
8. Core
9. Clip my toenails
10. Arms

Most typical upper body exercises bore me to tears. I just can't get hyped up for bench presses, pushdowns, and curls like I can for squats, lunges, and pull-ups.

Call me crazy.

One thing that helps make upper body days more fun, and consequently keeps me pushing hard, is experimenting with different exercise variations. Here are some upper body exercises that even I like.

1. Rotational One-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press

When I first saw the one-arm dumbbell bench press, I didn't give it the respect it deserves. It didn't look particularly hard, so I unassumingly grabbed the same weight I'd use for a regular dumbbell bench press.

Bad move. Anyone that's tried the exercise before knows where this is going.

On the first rep, I literally tipped to the side and fell off the bench, dropping the dumbbell like a total jackass and causing a scene. I knew immediately I was going to like this one.

While it's essentially an upper-body pushing exercise to work the chest, shoulders, and triceps, you'll learn fast that it's really a full body exercise. To be successful, you must create massive tension throughout your legs, core, and even the opposite arm.

You'll want to start out light to avoid my embarrassing fate, but interestingly, after a few tries to get the hang of it, you'll find you're able to use more weight unilaterally than you could bilaterally.

I like to start with a neutral grip at the bottom and pronate my wrist as I press. This feels great on the shoulders, and the rotation allows for a better contraction in my chest.

2. Ring Flies

These are brutal, but if you can pull them off, they'll fry your chest like no other. I first tried them after seeing a picture of Larry Scott doing them on some badass old-school chain rings.

This is an extremely advanced exercise, so don't just jump right into trying it if you don't have any experience on the rings. Doing so will inevitably lead to either a shoulder injury or a face plant, neither of which you want.

Make sure you can first knock out at least 25 ring push-ups to get acquainted with the inherent instability. From there, progress to flies with your arms bent at approximately a 90-degree angle. You may even want to do these on your knees at first.

Once you're comfortable with those, it's time to progress to full flies. Be sure to maintain a slight bend in your elbows to protect your shoulders and keep the tension on your chest.

If you get comfortable with full flies (and by comfortable I mean proficient – I can assure your pecs won't be comfortable), give ring "fly-aways" a shot. I got the idea for these from a recent Livespill from TC where he talked about a similar concept using dumbbells.

You're basically going to do a drop set going in the reverse order of the progression I laid out to work up to full flies: five full flies, five bent-arm flies, and five pushups, all in succession with no rest. Superset that with five minutes of lying on the floor, hating life.

Word of caution: If you find full flies bother your shoulders, stick to bent-arm flies. If those still bother your shoulders, stick to push-ups or find a different exercise. They're not for everyone.

3. Ring Push-up/Fly Combo

Like the name suggests, one arm does a push-up while the other arm does a fly. You'll want to place more weight on the arm doing the push-up and de-load the arm doing the fly as much as possible. It may help to think of it as a modified one-arm pushup where you reach the other arm straight out to the side. Alternate between arms each rep.

Confused? I don't blame you. Check out the video below.

The unilateral nature of the exercise may lead you to believe it's significantly more difficult than bilateral ring flies, but from a pressing standpoint, it's actually slightly easier since the arm doing the push-up is supporting the majority of the load where the lever arm is shorter. The "fly" arm simply provides some assistance to counter the rotational demands of the one-arm push up, and gets a decent stretch and bit of activation in the process.

From a core standpoint, however, it's much harder. The unilateral nature of the exercise introduces a big anti-rotational stability component since you have to brace extremely hard to avoid twisting toward the arm doing the fly.

4. Supinated Ring Chins

Some bodybuilding coaches spout that chin-ups are the best biceps exercise going and no direct biceps work is required. Others say to build mammoth bone-crushing pythons, you need to devote an entire day (or two or three) per week to arms and do every type of curl imaginable.

I'm somewhere in the middle.

I love chin-ups as much as anybody, while curls are the absolute bane of my training existence.

I dropped curls all-together about two years ago, and have just been doing a heavy diet of chin-ups and rows. In that time, my arms have stayed about the same size while the rest of my body has grown, leading me to believe that chin-ups obviously work the biceps to a large degree and are sufficient if your goals are more performance-based, but probably aren't enough if you hope to start selling tickets to the gun show.

Here's the thing: it depends largely on how you do the chin-ups.

For instance, I usually use a shoulder-width grip (often wider) and think of my arms as being hooks while my back does all the work. I also come to full extension at the bottom of every rep and do them explosively while maintaining control of my body (i.e. no swinging).

Interestingly, the better I've become at chin-ups, the less I feel them in my biceps. Fact is, when I do feel my biceps working a lot, I take it as a sign I'm not retracting my scapulae as I should be.

However, you can easily tweak them to hone in on the biceps. The best way I've found is with close-grip supinated ring chin-ups.

Place the rings as close together as possible and take a supinated grip. Perform the reps slower than normal on both the concentric and eccentric and stop just short of full extension at the bottom to keep constant tension on the biceps. It's important to be strict with these.

If you don't have rings, you can do them with just a bar, although the rings definitely add something to it from a biceps standpoint. You'll find that towards the bottom of the rep, the rings will start to twist and your biceps will be forced to kick into overdrive to keep that supinated wrist position.

These are a lot tougher than they look, so if it's too much at first, you can also try a similar concept using inverted rows instead.

Doing reps like this will invariably shortchange your back to some degree, so do them after your regular chin-up or inverted row workout to finish off your arms.

5. Super Slow Chin-ups

The explanation for these is simple, but they're far from easy. Do a close-grip chin-up as slowly as you can. That's it.

Shoot for 20-30 seconds on the concentric and 30-40 seconds on the eccentric to start. If you can do that, add some weight. If that's too much, then just go as slowly as you can.

I also like to do a static hold at the top.

Use a supinated grip for more biceps emphasis or a neutral grip to target the brachialis. Either way, it'll also blast your forearms and help build tremendous grip strength.

Save this for the tail end of your workout and just do one painstaking rep. Trust me, if you're doing it right, that's all you'll be able to muster.

6. Bodyweight Triceps Extensions

This is an awesome triceps exercise that, when done correctly, also smokes the core.

TC wrote about doing these in a Smith machine in a Livespill and while I like that exercise too, I prefer doing them using suspension straps for two reasons.

First, you can get a bigger range of motion. When you use a fixed bar, you're forced to do the exercise like a traditional skullcrusher where you bring your forehead to the bar. With straps, you can extend your arms forward slightly as you drop down so that at the bottom, your hands are actually behind your head. This enhances the stretch on the long head of the triceps and takes stress off the elbows.

Second, the straps allow you to rotate your hands freely as you move through the rep, making it more shoulder-friendly and increasing the contraction in your triceps.

To get the full benefit for your core, it's imperative that you keep a straight line from your feet to your head. There will be a tendency to want to pike at the hips, so you'll need to squeeze your glutes and brace your abs to prevent that from happening. It should feel similar to the sensation you get from an ab wheel rollout. If it doesn't, you're probably not doing it right.

This is a lot tougher than it looks, so start with the straps fairly high at first (approximately chest level) and work your way down.

7. Reverse Grip Dumbbell Floor Press

Perform this exercise just as you would a regular dumbbell floor press, only supinate your hands as you press. At the bottom your palms will face each other, while at the top they'll point back behind you.

Where you feel this exercise will depend on your set up. If you use a wider grip, you'll feel it more in your chest, whereas a closer-grip will put more emphasis on the triceps. I prefer a close grip because I find a wide grip puts undue stress on my shoulders, elbows, and wrists.

You can also try holding a supinated position throughout the rep, but I prefer to rotate to allow for a neutral, shoulder-friendly position closer to the chest.

Think about pressing the dumbbell down towards your feet rather than up over your face like you might in a typical barbell bench press. You obviously won't be able to, but having that cue in your mind makes the exercise go more smoothly.

Start with about 50% of the weight you can use for a regular dumbbell press and go from there.

8. The "Anti" Press

In response to Dr. Stuart McGill's research regarding spinal health, much of the new-age core training focuses on "anti" movement stability training: anti-rotation, anti-extension, and anti-lateral flexion. I called this exercise the "anti press" because it addresses all those categories simultaneously.

Grab the handle of a suspension strap and face sideways. Lean out so that your body is at about a 60% angle to the floor. Now brace your core to keep from twisting and press straight out until your arms are fully extended. This part of the motion is similar to a Pallof press you might do with bands or cables and works anti-rotation.

From there, bring your arms straight overhead and pause for a brief second. At this point, you're focusing on anti-extension and anti-lateral flexion. Rinse and repeat for the desired reps.

Along with building tremendous core stability, this also assists with shoulder strength and mobility. I'm always looking for ways to kill as many birds as I can with one stone and this exercise fits the bill nicely.

It's easy to progress or regress simply by adjusting your foot position and/or the length of the strap. The further out your feet are from the anchor point and the shorter the strap is, the easier it will be. Move your feet more underneath the anchor point and increase the length of the strap as you get better.

This is a very advanced exercise, so you may want to start with just the overhead portion and see how that goes first.

Conclusion

If you're one of those people that when asked how you're doing always responds with "same shit, different day," some of these exercises may be just what you need to spice up your gym life and get growing again. Don't go throwing all the basics out the window, but use these as supplements to reignite your training vigor or to help break through a rut or plateau.

Have fun, and be sure to save me a seat at the gun show.

Actually, don't bother. I'm pretty sure I'll be training legs that day.

Wikio