Most fitness gurus will state that training 3 times a week works best. The only reason why they say this is because it sells. That’s the honest truth.
Think about it… If I told you that you need to train every day and bust your balls each training session in hope to lose 1 kilo a week. Or you can train 3 times a week for only 30 minutes and get 6 pack abs, and have the body of a fitness model. Which one would you choose?
If you want just an ‘ok’ body that you may not necessarily be thrilled about but you’re not embarrassed of either, then you probably could get away with 3 x 30 minute sessions.
But that’s not what this site is about. Being ‘ok’ is not the norm here. This site is for cardio haters who strive for perfection.
If you want to be a true badass cardio hater you will want to train ideally every day.
Does Training Everyday Lead To Over Training?
This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
Skipping is one of the best things you can do if you want to get ripped without cardio, improve fitness, or just overall athleticism. Period.
And compared to running, running doesn’t even come to close. And that statement is not being biased because of cardio haters… Well maybe just a little.
Why running sucks
Due to sedentary lifestyles; from sitting in a chair all day at work, to sitting in the car and on the couch for most of the day. The average person has terrible posture.
If this person decides that one of their goals for this year is to exercise and get into shape. Usually their first option is to start running.
Now I’m all up for people getting in exercise and getting into shape. But I would rather them do it the most safest way.
But jumping straight into a running program is usually going to cause a few problems and here’s why…
Monday morning arrives and I awake with a smile. Yep Monday and smiling. And this is normal for my Monday! Why? Because I realise it’s a CHG day. A Cardio Haters Gym day that is.
I’m one of the 6:30pm groupies and I have been training for about 4 months now.
I’m going to run you through a typical session from when I walk in till I leave at the gym.
We normally roll up about 6:20pm to get in some foam rolling, stretching and chatting in before we start our group warm up. This time is good to catch up with what others have been doing outside the gym, be it exercise related or not, since our last session.
When it’s time Grant will get us started on the dynamic warm up and have us perform some interestingly named stretches, some of which always cause a smile within the group. Every muscle /muscle group is covered for what exercises we will be doing that night.
Once we are sufficiently warmed up we move on to our first exercise.
Tonight this was the barbell shoulder press. Everyone has their own weight that they are up to based on their one rep max – me – I’m still just using the bar.
Most do five sets of five (with two lower weighted and numbered warm up sets), but this is my kryptonite and I’m just managing to push out five sets of three. But this excites me, finally did this without struggling.
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…
As most of you are already aware… I’ve had chronic knee problems since surgery back in 2007. Actually, my knee wasn’t that bad after surgery, it was actually a year later when I was training and then the next morning I woke up and it was the size of a balloon. No idea what happened.
Last year (2010) was the worst it has been, mainly because I continued to play footy on it. After every Saturday game it would take me all week to prepare and recover just to get up for the following week.
I had scope on it September last year to give it a clean-up from all the damage I did… but it didn’t really do much.
Because all the dramas I’ve had with it, I was just way too frustrated to play footy this year and decided to have the year off to give the knee a break which will hopefully allow me to on in the future.
For once I hit the nail on the head and the decision has so far paid off.
Because off all the dramas with the knee, I have been very hesitant to go hard with my leg training.
With that being said, I got back into box squats last night and for the first time in about 2 years and hit a nice weight pain free.
I worked up to one top end set of 100 x 5. That’s nothing to be impressed with at all, but I was very happy with the number considering the circumstances…
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 training blog post by Grant Lofthouse
Question from a Cardio Hater: Hey, I’ve been looking on your blog a bit trying to get a few of your tips…
I have a few questions in you don’t mind helping me out…
I’ve been to a few gyms and both personal trainers there have given me different programs. One being a split and the other full body.
What are the pros and cons of each? And what would you recommend is the best?
I don’t want to get massive, just lean muscle and a little bit of bulk.
Cheers,
Luke
Just so everyone is on track. Full body workouts are usually the ‘go to’ programs for cutting body fat and staying lean.
Splits… were you train one body part one day and another the next, are usually used for putting on slabs of meat.
With that being said…
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.
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…
