This blog has just ticked over its one year anniversary and a goal of mine has always been to get in touch with regular readers and fellow cardio haters once it reached a decent audience.
Now that cardio haters gets on average a few hundred hits a day and with my email list almost reaching the thousand mark, I thought there’s no time like the present to find out a little bit more about YOU.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’re well aware that I am an open book and I’m not afraid to talk to you about serious, funny and embarrassing moments involving myself.
You’ve probably also heard the story about why I had to give away cardio. (If you haven’t you can check out this post HERE).
Now I’m not asking you give away in-depth, personal stories similar to what I do…
But I do want to know why you hate cardio.
You may have a simply answer or a really in-depth, crazy story.
All you gotta do is leave a comment below.
The other day I was asked on my facebook fan page from a reader if you need to do cardio to lose fat?
I thought this would be a great post considering the niche of my blog.
Also… I wanted to warn you that I’m in a pretty sweet mood as I write this post. Most of the time when I blog it’s usually in the morning when I’m grumpy.
But today I’ve got some time to write it in the afternoon, so you’re probably going to see my normal personality in this article.
I warn you, it could get nasty.
Also, for the sake of this article…
When I mention cardio I mean running.
And When I mention conditioning I mean anything else that elevates the heart rate except running.
Anyways… do we need to do cardio to lose fat?
No.
But do we need to do conditioning to lose fat?
Yes.
Now before all you cardio haters start emailing me and calling me a trader, thinking I’ve gone over to the dark side. Just hang on two secs and let me explain…
This is a supplements blog post by Grant Lofthouse
I was actually going to write this post for my clients in our private, memebers only area. But for some reason it ended up on my blog. I have no idea how that happened.
Anyways…
I thought I would take the time and show you in this blog post the most current, up-to-date supplements that I recommend to stripping body fat and improving health and performance.
I’ve tried most supplements on the market and I won’t lie… most of them are absolute bull shit – pumped with cheap artificial crap that does more harm than good.
Since I’m a huge fan of keeping things simple, I will continue the trade in the supplement field as well.
Here’s my list of the top 5 supplements that’ll do the trick…
1.) Protein powder – since protein powder in under large demand these days. Most companies take shortcuts and get their protein from sick cows pumped up on drugs. And for that reason there are only 2 that I recommend…
As I knew it would… the last post I did about why I think circuit training sucks really stirred the pot. So today I wanted to clear things up and put some stuff to rest.
When I mentioned ‘circuit training’, I was talking about the typical high rep, light weight, little fancy pants exercises with no rest stuff. So what I should have mentioned in the header was ‘typical circuit training’ – maybe that would have stopped the hate mail… my bad.
Typical circuit training will get you know where, and is about as useful as Zumba.
But don’t get me wrong… I’m not completely against circuit training if it’s done the right way.
If you make a few alternative options (which I’m about to list below) you can make the training program pretty damn effective and lose body fat without cardio, improve strength and overall fitness. Check out the alternatives below…
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
The coolest thing about having your own private training facility and a pool of clients is that you get to test different types of theories and training methods.
Over the last few weeks I decided to set aside and dedicate the entire 12 weeks to circuit training only.
Circuit training can really be anything as long as you have 3-6 exercises lined up going from one to the next to the next.
There’s no ‘written in stone’ prescribed sets and reps but a typical circuit style workout would consist of medium to high reps of 10+ with minimal to no rest.
The typical circuit style workout that we did at the gym looked something like this…
1a.) Chinups – 5 x 8-10 x no rest
1b.) 1 Arm Shoulder Press – 5 x 8-10 x no rest
1c.) Walking Lunges – 5 x 12-15 x no rest
1d.) Superman’s – 5 x 20 x no rest
Each month I changed a few of the exercises to avoid boredom and kept the workout very simple and easy to track and test.
At the end of the 12 weeks I came to the conclusion that I circuit training sucks! and here’s 4 reasons why…
This is a diet and fat loss guest post by Dave Nelson
What is alkalising? Is it important for fat loss?
Being alkaline is necessary for the body to resist disease. The human body was created to heal and protect itself, but through poor nutrition an a highly acidic world we live in, our cells performance is effecting and we fall ill!
Alkaline is measured on a scale of 0-14 called the pH scale. (the levels in your blood stream the best indication)
7 is mutual, with 7.4 being an optimum alkaline state. At 7.4 our bodies are rich in oxygen and as mentioned, our cells thrive and fight illness and disease.
In an acidic body, our cells are low in oxygen and malfunction and in some cases mutate which can lead to cancer growth etc. Dr Wallberg a Noble Prize winner discovered that cancer and disease cannot live and breed in an oxygen rich environment.
Where does this acid come from?
This is a interview post with Dave Nelson
Dave NelsonSince you follow more of the “fitness model training style” how can you best explain the difference between the two? And also outline the positives and negatives of both sides of the training styles…
Yeah sure, well the main differences I see between people only worried about the “fitness model look” and those who are looking to improve overall health and well being starts with their nutrition.
The people I see chasing “the look” often have diets full of chemicals and preservatives for starters. When starting out I too, was guilty of downing lots of diet coke, caffeine filled fat burners and low carb products with heaps of hidden toxins in replacement of sugars and fats.
Often its only the calorie intake that is even looked at with no consideration of long term health or effects these chemicals may be having on your health.
Whereas the people who want to improve health and well being avoid additives, preservatives and are more often far more worried about getting their daily requirements of fruit and vegetables and therefore are fully nourished and healthier people. They try and eat as naturally as possible and therefore are a lot more resilient to lethargy, poor skin, illness etc.
The exercise programs between the two groups are quiet different, people chasing that “Hollywood look” often only train visual muscles such as chest, arms and abs. This creates a huge imbalance and can create a lot of pain and leads to injuries.
Whereas your clients for example Grant, are trained really well, concentrating on balancing muscle groups, flexibility, core and overall strength.
This is a interview post with Dave Nelson
Hey what’s up Grant here,
I managed to get a hold of my buddy Dave Nelson, and got him to spill the beans on some diet stuff.
In part 1. we cover…
Diet structure mistakes.
Protein, fat and carb mistakes.
Supplement mistakes.
And part 2. we cover…
How Dave structures his diet.
His protein, fat and carb strategies.
And what supplements he takes.
You can check out part one here…
In today’s post I’m going to give you my top 11 favourite ab exercises.
Let’s face it… having rock hard abs has got to be one the most impressive thing you can display on your body. Well, at least that’s what Jersey Shores ‘the Situation’ would say.
But he’s right. I mean, who doesn’t abs that turn heads?
As I’ve stated in previous posts, for beginners; apart from planks, side planks, prone mountains and bird dogs. All dynamic ab exercises, that I’m about to show you, are a waste of time for a couple reasons.
Beginners don’t need to perform dynamic ab exercises because…
At first; Beginners will get enough ab training from all other big compound exercises such as shoulder presses, chin ups, squats, deadlifts and pushups. They have a 2 bird with one stone effect, so why do any more if you don’t have to?
Usually all dynamic exercises are too hard for beginners to perform correctly with good technique. So until you build up your strength via body weight exercises and plank variations you won’t really benefit from doing em’.
Also remember that if you are above 15% body fat, it doesn’t matter how much you train your abs. What you need to do is focus on fat loss first and then move your focus towards getting a 6 pack. By the way these two posts should help you do that…
Welcome back to Cardio Haters, where the coolest people come back to check up on the latest cutting edge techniques to lose fat without cardio.
Today’s post is special. It’s not your stock standard “how to” article. This post has heart, sweat, tears and determination all rolled up into one killer post. And that’s because this is a tribute to one of my best clients, Lyn.
To date she has lost 19 kilos – hence the title, and now I’m going to tell you how we did it.
Lyn – weighing over 100 kilosWhen Lyn walked through the doors at my Rowville personal training facility weighing over 100 kilos I didn’t know what to think. I mean at first I always keep an open mind and let their one week tryout do the talking to let me know how serious they are.
But what usually runs through my mind is how long are they going to keep it up for? Anyone can be motivated to train and eat healthy for a week. Only the true determined can stick with it.
At the end of her first week we sat down and had a quick chat. I could tell with the look in her eyes that she wasn’t lying. So I was happy for her to continue.
Weight training
We started off with 2 weight training sessions a week. For beginners, 2 hard weight training sessions a week is plenty. Anymore and a couple negative things are going happen…
First they will burn out – half the reason why people are overweight is because they hate training. So asking them to commit to 3 or more sessions a week will only last about 2-3 weeks and then they’ll fall off the wagon.
Secondly, usually that’s all the need – so why do anymore if you don’t need to. I like my clients to have a life outside of the gym so I encourage them to play a sport, walk or do something physical for a minimum of 30 minutes every day. I’ll get more specific with off day training later on in the article.
