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?

Many think that training everyday will lead to over training. But this is untrue.

Gymnasts train every day using full body workouts.

Russian lifters train up to 18 times per week.

Bulgarians train up 3-4 times per day.

MMA guys train 2-3 times a day.

Louie Simmons trains the strongest power lifters in the world who squat over 500 kilos. He states that overtraining is virtually impossible if you’re smart about it.

Now if he states that for power lifters, who lift about 300% more than the average joe. Do you really think our population will be over trained from training everyday?

To be fair I would state that the average cardio hater doesn’t possess or have time to dedicate the same amount to recovery as do the athletes I have listed above.

UFC Fighter BJ Penn has an entire room in his house just for recovery. The room is at a certain temperature with the perfect lighting and even an oxygen mask.

So getting the average person train 2-3 times a day, everyday would be neither optimal, nor realistic due to family and work commitments.

But we can certainly settle on that training every day won’t lead to over training if you’re smart about it.

How To Train Twice Per Day

Me practicing my one arm handstand

With that being said, if training twice a day is something that’s on your to do list here are a few tips…

The more often you want to train the smarter you have to be about it, otherwise you will just get beaten up.

First - I wouldn’t do this overnight. It may take you 6-12 months to work up to training twice a day. Add extra days very slowly and only when you are ready.

Second - Seperate the two sessions at least a bare minimum of 4 hours apart. 6-8 hours would be better ideal.

Third - Make sure you keep the volume low.

Fouth – If you know one of the sessions is going fairly high in intensity, make sure the other session is low intensity. Something like mobility work, walking, swimming or practicing a certain exercise like a one arm handstand.

Fifth – Make sure you set aside some decent amount of time to mobility and stretching. Just like our training, I believe that if you want to imporve your flexibility you should dedicate some serious time to it.

There Is More To Life Than The Gym

I pity those that think they have to be inside the gym 5-6 times a week in order to get results and classify it as a ‘training session’.

I agree that they should be training 5-6 times a week. But it doesn’t always have to be in the gym.

I train almost every day. But you will only see me at my gym training 3-4 times a week.

The other days I’m outside walking, down at the park on the playground banging out bodyweight exercises, out on the oval running sprints, dragging the sled or playing some sport.

All these examples can be classified as ‘training sessions’.

There is more to life than just the gym and lifting iron. Think outside the box.

Training Week Example

Here is an example of something you might want to progress too…

Monday – AM: 20 minute fasted morning walk. PM: Full body strength training

Tuesday – 20-40 minutes of sled dragging.

Wednesday – AM: 20 minute fasted morning walk. PM: Full body strength training.

Thursday – 20 minutes of hill sprints.

Friday – AM: 20 minute fasted morning walk. PM: Full body strength training.

Saturday – Practice some chins, handstands, pushups , front levers and 15 minutes of skipping.

Sunday – 1 hour walk.

How Often Should You Train To Lose Fat Without Cardio

With all the being said here are some guidelines I recommend when it comes to training frequency…

- Start slow; don’t go from training 2 times a week to 6. Add in an extra day every couple weeks or months.

- Eventually aim to train everyday.

- There is nothing wrong with training twice day, but just make sure one of those sessions is fairly low intensity.

- Spend no more than 3-4 sessions a week at the gym.

- The other days get outside and play, walk, run sprints, drag the sled, perform bodyweight training on the playground.

- Just because you’re not in your own pool of sweat doesn’t mean you didn’t train. Lance Armstrong says “you train to build the body, not break it”.

- With that being said don’t train like a pussy either. Perform 2-3 hard sessions a week and the rest should be at moderate intensity.

- If you want to impove something, for example Chinups, you should train it every day.

- Spend some time on recovery like foam rolling, stretching, mobility, contrast showers etc. so that you don’t get beat up.

Hopefully these tips have helped.  

Can you do me a favor and hit the like button to help spread the word.

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I was at friend’s house the other day who invited a few people over. Some I’ve never met before.  During the barbeque some people started to come out of their shells a bit and conversations were starting left right and centre.

I met this new guy. Let’s call him Jimmy for the sake of this article.

Jimmy asked me my favourite question in the world…

So what do you do?

I pause. Hoping that he can’t see me if I don’t move.

But Jimmy keeps continuing to stare at me with a ‘well I’m waiting’ kinda look.

I take a big deep breath and mumble “I’m a trainer.”

“What?” Jimmy replies.

“I’m a trainer and run my own private training facility.”

(The reason why I don’t like telling people I’m a trainer is because I get bombarded by the same questions over and over again… ‘how do I lose this? what do you think of that? Can you write me a program for free? Eat the whole egg?’. And even when I do give them advice they don’t take it on board. Most of the time I just lie and tell them I’m a pornstar and I call my self ‘Buck Naked’ to keep my sanity.)

“Oh really? I train too. I train down at such and such with Bobby B. He owns the gym and was ranked 97 in Australia’s So You Think You Can Bodybuild competition.”

“Awesome” I reply and also try to get off the topic.

At the time I decided to continue eating my lunch. I go to eat some broccoli. And Jimmy puts his hands up and says “no no stop! Don’t eat that!”

The way he carried on I thought there was a bee on the piece of broccoli or something.

Don’t eat broccoli, it lowers your thyroid levels.

“Oh ok.” I replied, and took a massive bite.

“What are you doing?” Jimmy says. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Yeah” I reply. “I just don’t care.”

I went on to explain to Jimmy that there is a fine line between anal and insane. The example I used was eating organic is anal, and avoiding broccoli because it may lower your thyroid levels is insane.

If you stop eating broccoli because you’re worried about a little thyroid damage. Then you might as well stop strength training, eating and breathing and living the life like the bubble boy off Seinfeld.

The body is one, tough, mother fucker.

I unfortunately knew some people who drank and smoked like it’s going out of fashion for 50+ years. And lived until they were 85.

I’m not saying you should opt in for that kinda lifestyle. But I’m saying that the body can tolerate some pretty harsh things. But I am pretty sure that if you eat some broccoli, you will still wake up tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe in living a heatlhy life. But notice how I said living. If have to worry about a piece of brocolli, then I ain’t living.

I absolutely cannot stand people that over analyse every little thing. A perfect example was the other day on Facebook. This trainer stated that you shouldn’t eat banana’s before training because they contain serotonin, which calms us down and helps us sleep.

C’mon really? I know a guy that goes by the name of John Hinds who eats 12 bananas a day. And trains like a badass.

People are still eating bacon and egg mcmuffins for breakfast. Do you think it’s really going to matter if we get them to eat broccoli and bananas instead?

There is so much confusion already about diet and training. Let’s not make it worse and confuse more people.

I’m not saying that you can use this post as an excuse to skip training and eat cheese burgers.

I am saying there is a fine line between anal and insane. By all means be anal when it comes to your diet and training. Always strive for perfection.

But don’t become insane. And If you do, then I encourage you to stop living, lifting, eating and breathing.

If you enjoyed this post, can you do me a favour and hit the ‘Like’ button.

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I can also admit that I didn’t achieve some things such as launching my first product to you guys.

The weird thing for me last year is that although I achieved so many things, I didn’t really have the drive. I wanted to do stuff but I didn’t really go after it. My attitude was if it happened, it happened. And if it didn’t, it didn’t and I would just accept it.

That turning point

At some stage in your life you have a turning point and you just think, man the fuck up and get to work.

For me that turning point was December the 1^st last year at Eminem’s concert. It was my first concert that I had ever been to and it was a true eye opener.

I was just totally blown away from how 60,000 people would attend from all over Melbourne just to see one guy.

From little kids to adults were all there just to see one dude do his thing. Everyone knew his songs and most people were rapping along with him word for word. Unbelievable!

I dunno why but that kinda stuff sends chills down my back to think that he was just a normal average guy who brushed off critics and haters and hustled everyday to get after his dream.

And now he’s an international celebrity and can’t take one step outside without someone bugging him for an autograph.

I guess for me what I learnt is that if you really go after something you can do whatever you want. Even if it is standing infront of 60,000 people and doing ya thang.

After witnessing Eminem’s concert and being truly inspired and pumped, that night as I was driving home I told myself to man the fuck up and to stop procrastinating on things you want to get done.

Since then I’ve been avoiding the sleep ins and have been hustling everyday on my goals for this year.

My goals

I thought I would share with you my personal, business and online goals for this year. The main reason is simply to keep my accountable. I also strongly encourage you to check up on me every now and then on my facebook or even just by dropping and email and asking where I’m at with things.

Because if I don’t do a blog post or come out with a product, you miss out on information that can help you with one of your goals for 2012. And I wouldn’t want that. So let’s work together.

I literally have a few hundred little goals but to save the length of this post I’ll mention my top 5 personal goals for this year…

1. My number one personal goal for me this year is to be the healthiest version of myself. This will obviously mainly be achieved through my diet but also exercising every day. Last year I was very inconsistent with my diet and training. But this year I plan on hitting 365 training sessions this year which equals to one a day.

I will base being the healthiest version of myself by my sleep, energy levels, strength levels, how often I get sick and if I remain injury free.

2. Pistol squat pain free. Since surgery my right knee has never been the same. Pre surgery I used to be able to bang out ass to grass pistol squats with no problem, I could even add weight. I can on my left , but not on my right. I get an enormous amount of pain when I drop down about a quarter of the way. This year I want to bang out at least one pain free pistol.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Become an RKC. An RKC is the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certification. This is considered as being a black belt in the kettlebell community. Some of the best trainers in the world such Brett Jones, Gray Cook, Dan John and Andrew Read are all RKC’s. Basically if you are an RKC you are a badass and not taken lightly. The certification is late this year and I will be working with Andrew Read to prepare for about 4-5 months out.

4. Demonstrate advanced bodyweight exercises. If have been following me for a while you would know that I love bodyweight training. To me being able to crank out one arm pushups is far more impressive than bench pressing double your bodyweight. I want to be able to perform the following… 1 arm chinups, pistol squats with weight, front levers and the mother of all – One arm handstand pushups.

5. Travel overseas. Yes not all my goals are fitness related. I’ve never been overseas before and I wouldn’t mind hitting up Bali or Thailand this year for a few weeks.

Business Goals

1. I want to help over 100 people this year through my gym. I’m also talking about consistent clients. Not someone who comes for one session. But someone that I work with for a minimum of 3 months or at least until I help them reach their goals. I want to also achieve this without cheating by running bootcamps with 30+ people where I can’t even remember their names. Right now I’m at about 45 people.

2. I want to own my gym. Currently I’m renting, but I would much rather put that money towards a place that I know I will eventually own. If that means moving out of my current gym to a new one then I will.

 Online Goals

1. Launch my first product. This was one of my goals for last year but unfortunately I was unable to tick off. Well the good news is that I’m already half way done. I plan on starting the video recording this week and should have the entire product ready for you in a couple months.

2. Hit youtube. You’ll notice this year that there will be a lot more posts with video. I plan on hitting 5000 subscribers on youtube.

3. Hit Facebook. My goal is to hit at least 2000 facebook fans by the end of the year.

How I Plan On Helping You This Year

 1. New products. As I just mentioned I will be launching my first product this year which will contain over 50+ unique finishers. I also plan on doing a 12-16 week training and diet program mid to late this year catered towards beginner cardio haters.

2. RWC 2.0. Since I’ve received positive feedback about my RWC program on my blog. I plan on doing a 2.0 and providing you a full 12-16 week RWC program with some new tweaks.

3. One on One & Online coaching. For the last 2 years I have turned back numerous amounts of people who wanted to work with me one or one. I’d always felt that I would rather help 10 people in one hour than just one.

So what I’ve decided to do is I’m going to be accepting once off one on one training sessions. So basically we will meet somewhere and we will do a once off session. I will teach you everything I can with the amount of time I’m with you regarding your technique, sets and reps, exercise selection or whatever you are feeling you need help with.

Likewise I will also be accepting a selected amount of people to help online by providing 12-16 week training and diet programs as well as ongoing coaching.

More on this to come in the next few months.

4. More blog posts. I plan on banging out at least 2 posts a week filled with killer content and stuff that we do at my facility.

5. Finisher of the month. Pretty self explanatory.

6. Live facebook Q n A. Once every couple months or so I plan on sending out an email to everyone one day in advance and hold a live Q n A on my facebook fan page for 20 minutes or so where you can ask me any training or diet questions that you need help with.

I have have a few other things install for you, but I want to keep some things under the radar so you have some things to look forward to this year.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the year and as you can see I have a ton of things on my plate which I look forward to delivering to you guys and helping you as much as possible.

If there is any questions or any ideas for stuff that you would like help with please let me know by leaving a comment.

Let’s dominate this year together.

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; sitting in a chair, on the couch and in the car 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 exercising and getting into shape. But I would rather them do it the most safest way.

Jumping straight into a running program is usually going to cause a few problems and here’s why…

1. Posture only get’s worse. Their day to day living of slumped shoulders and forward head lean is only going to carry over to their running posture. And if anything it gets worse.

I’ve found that even people with good posture will still run with crappy technique. And this is typically owed to the next point…

1. Crappy foot wear. Runners encourage you to land with your heel first rather than the ball of your foot thanks to that nice juicy heel. The heel is not suppose to take on at least 2 times your body weight with each landing.

Take these two things – bad posture and bad running mechanics and apply at least two times your bodyweight in force and guess what we get over a period of time.

An injury.

Why skipping rules

If you take the exact same person with bad posture and hand them a skipping rope, some amazing things will happen without even saying one word.

First thing will happen is that the ‘skippie’ will automatically push their chest out and pull their shoulders back into perfect posture.

Secondly the ‘skippie’ will stay on the balls of their feet the entire time.

And remember this is without me saying one word.

So from a trainers perspective I absolutely love this because it makes my job a hell of a lot easier.

Running vs. Skipping for cardio

If you skip for 30 seconds and rest for 30 seconds and repeat for 10-15 minutes. You will be absolutely gassed! And that’s even just at a fairly low intensity.

To get the same effect you would need to run for at least 30+ minutes, unless you go balls out.

For the above reasons… this is why I think skipping is better than running.

Still not clear? Check out this video…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Please share and click the like button if you enjoyed this article.

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I thought this would be a great article to start off the new year considering new goals and new year resolutions start to get thrown around.

How you look at goal setting is up to you. I used to think of it as some corny shit that only goody goody toe shoes did. But until you actually achieve a pretty massive goal that you thought was unreachable you start to believe in it.

For me that turning point was last year when I moved into my new training facility. I didn’t think it would have ever happened or I would have the balls to do it. But I did.

The feeling from reaching a big badass goal is indescribable and if you have done the same, you know what I’m talking about.

Anyways I have now changed the way I set goals and achieve them, and I’m going to show you how this applies to your fitness and fat loss goals.

When I set a goal; for example “I want to cut some body fat without cardio so that I see my abs within 2 months” I write it down and then set it to the side because right now I can’t control that, I can’t wake up tomorrow and have abs popping out. That just won’t happen.

But I can control the things that will lead to abs of steel.

And that is through my diet, strength training and sprint program.

So I map out what I need to do within the next 2 months.

- Strength train three times a week.

- Sprint twice a week.

- And eat 3 healthy meals a day.

So I calculate how many sessions and meals I will need to complete in 2 months and that will be my goal and focus.

For example…

In order for me to cut body fat without cardio so that I see my abs within 2 months I need to…

- Strength train 24 times.

- Sprint 16 times.

- And eat 168 healthy meals.

As I go throughout the day I will tick off every session or meal.

And I know that if I do all these things and reach my numbers I know that I will give myself every chance to reaching my goals. Because as we know, most of the time we don’t reach our goals because either we lose motivating, sight or focus.

And that’s because we only focus on the big pile of treasure waiting for us at the end of the rainbow.

However if you follow the tips I gave you above, you will give yourself the best chance to reaching that treasure.

Call it corny, say it won’t work, that’s up to you.

But 2012 for me is going to be one badass and exciting year. And I hope it is for you too.

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Now that cardio haters gets on average a few hundred hits a day and with my email list almost reaching the one 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.

Now for all the comments left, I’m going to pick one person who left a badass comment and reward you with the choice of one of my training programs.

You can have either Phase 2 of my RWC program…

This is month 2 of my free program that you have probably already downloaded from my blog.

The program features…

• 3 day a week program.
• Unique rep cycling method using heavy, light and medium sets and reps to produce the best all round muscle building and fat burning results.
• Advanced body weight exercises.
• One of a kind finishers that you’ve never seen before to build a heart of steel.
• Plus much more.

Or you can have my Aussies in Battle Program – Phase 1.

This is program features…

• 4 day a week upper/ lower split
• Kettlebell, Dumbbell, Barbell, TRX and Bodyweight exercises included in the program.
• Unique AB exercises that don’t hurt your back but produce the best results.
• 4 different set and rep methods used within the program.
• Plus much more.

Again to win either of theses programs all you got to do is leave me a comment below telling me why you hate cardio.

I’ll choose a winner sometime next week.

Giddy up!

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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 (about 13 of us) 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.

Grant uses a basic progressive overload method by adding 2.5 kilos to the bar each week. Once we max out – can no longer get 5 sets of 5 with that weight – we deload and repeat the process again.

 Because I’m just using the bar and haven’t got much room to play with, my progressive overload method is a little different to others. Grant manipulates my sets and reps so that I continue to progress. Next week I’ll be up to 6 sets of 3! And then 8 sets of 2!

After this exercise we then moved onto a superset – where you go back and forth between 2 exercises – of neautral grip inverted rows and barbell glute bridges. Yippee I can do these. Both four sets of eight.

The barbell glute bridge was a new exercise so Grant gave a demonstration and explanation first up and then it was our turn. It took a bit for everyone to get the hang of it, and this provided a few laughs with the ‘ohhhhs’ and ‘ahhhs’ and ‘this doesn’t quite feel natural’ comments going around.

Once done with that we move on to the finisher. As you probably know, the finisher acts as our cardio instead of a typical jog on the treadmil.

 There is lots of encouragement and comraderie as each group goes through their set (over and over again) and you can see the pain on people’s faces.  

This nights finisher included medicine ball pushups, medicine ball slams and medicine ball squat jumps.

I’ve decided it’s called a finisher for more than one reason and my favourite is that if you thought you still had some energy left, or that you coped pretty well this particular night…well you won’t after the finisher.

It will finish you right off, so much so that you won’t even remember that feeling you had before and you so badly want the finisher to finish because it is in the processing of killing you…well ok not literally…and you know that when it finally does, finish not kill you that is – you will be completely spent, used up, spat out and FINISHED.

It is the best feeling!

The high is so great all I can think of (after lying on the floor catching my breath and sanity for a bit) is bring on the next session!

And that’s pretty much how we do it at Cardio Haters.

If you liked this post please let me know by commenting or clicking the ‘like’ button below.

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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…

You ‘could’ get away with losing body fat without cardio or conditioning IF your diet was absolutely 100% spot on. And I mean REALLLLY spot on.

No carbs.

No junk.

No cheat meals.

Noth’n, nadda, zip… Got it?

Your diet has to be as good as this if you wana lose fat without cardio

But since that will rule out 99% of the population I’m left with no other answer but yes.

Also, the other thing I should mention is when you go full ‘anti cardio and conditioning’, and you do by chance make your diet look as good as Jennifer Hawkins straight out of a hot shower and you actually see some signs of a 6 pack.

You will still feel like a slob when it comes to anything thing that involves any day-to-day work like walking up a flight of stairs, running after the bus or especially when you girls do sleep overs and have a pillow fight in your underwear.

Last year when I launched this blog and went really anti cardio and conditioning and just dialled in my diet and weight training. I did look good in photos. But when it came to performance I sucked.

Why?

Because I would be gassed out before the warm up, or like I said before, when I walked up a flight of stairs or anything that involved a higher heart rate I would break into a pant and sweat.

I could lift heavy stuff, but that was about it.

As Louie Simmons says “what good is being able to lift a heavy weight only once. For goodness sake, stay in shape”. Or something simliar along those lines.

It’s all cool, badass and hi-fives when you look in the mirror and see sweet F.A body fat, lean muscle and a 6 pack popping out at you.

But then when you step into the gym and train like a poodle, it’s very psychologically hard to deal with. Especially since we associate having a 6 pack as being ‘fit’.

But I’ve seen 14 year old kids who eat shit all day and still have a 6 pack, does that mean they’re fit and strong?

Hardly.

So now you’re probably thinking “great, cardio haters is dead, I’ve been lied too and now I gotta’ jump back on the treadmill again”.

Hold on buddy…

As I’ve said numerous times before… conditioning is anything that elevates the heart rate, not just running. Weight training is conditioning, sprinting is conditioning, walking is conditioning and even sex (as long as you last longer than my world record of 30 seconds) is conditioning.

In conclusion…

To make this article absolutely dummy proof, I’ll re-word the question…

Do you have to RUN to lose body fat?

No.

I haven’t gone for a run for almost 2 years and either have any of my clients once they enter my gym. And we still all get results and have the performance to go with it as well.

Running sucks period.

It destroys your joints, breaks down your immune system and elevates cortisol levels which is the stress hormone that is designed to store body fat and eat muscle.

So even if you enjoy the occasional run and are truely serisous about getting down to single digit body fat. I encourage you to stop and take on other conditioning methods such as…

Finishers

Fasted walking

Hill sprints

and Pillow fights

Yes you do have to get your heart rate up if you want to get into killer shape.

But this (finishers, hill sprints etc.) is the kinda stuff that will get you in shape, this is the kinda stuff that will help you lose body fat without cardio.

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D: Hey its Darren here from www.p4manceelite.com and today we have a special guest, all the way from Australia. He is one badass trainer who owns a little gym, blogs, lives and breathes health and fitness and loves Seinfeld… Welcome Grant Lofthouse.

G: Hahaha thanks for the intro, and for being on this call.

D: No probs dude I’ve looking forward to it all week. Now Grant. why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?

G: Ok well I’m a trainer based out of Australia and own a little gym in Melbourne. And I’m also the creator of CardioHaters.com which is the only site on the net that delivers alternative training methods for fitness enthusiasts who hate cardio.

Most of the stuff I write about is based on the things I have done in the trenches as well as on countless average joes  at my private training facility.

D: Nice nice, now I noticed you mentioned in the trenches. So for those who don’t know, what do you mean by that?

G: Well look these days there is so much conflicting studies on why this and that is good and bad. Shit, even I sometimes don’t even know what to believe anymore.

So most of my blog posts are based upon what we do here in the gym with real people with jobs and a life. Don’t get me wrong… I stay up to date with the latest discoveries. But what I will actually do is try it on my clients and if it works I’ll stick with it, but if it doesn’t Ill can it.

D: Totally makes sense, do you think these days people get too involved with the science side on not so much getting out there and doing it.

G: Absolutely and that’s probably one of the top reasons why people don’t achieve any results. It’s because today they will read about some new diet and then 2 weeks later they will find another one that says that diet is bad and to do this one instead. It’s just never ending.

I also think people forget about the basics and what has worked for years and years and that is train hard and smart, eating clean and recover.

Too many people worry about the little stuff. And I’ve actually got a perfect example for this…

D: Please do share…

G: 2 weeks ago I was at friends birthday and this bloke came up to me and said I follow your stuff but some of it I don’t agree with. And I asked what that was. He said well I read that you shouldn’t eat fruit on a fat loss diet, but you recommend it.

Now the funny part was the bloke was trying to argue with me by throwing big scientific words whilst probably being 10-15 kilos over weight and supporting a beer in his hand.

Do you get my point?

D: Hahaha yeah so you are saying that fruit was the least of the guys problem?

G: Exactly

D: Yeah I totally agree, ok well can we get a bit more specific now. Can you give me 2 points you find people go the wrong way about things when trying to lose fat without cardio.

G: Sure the first thing I notice is people spend too long in a caloric and carbohydrate deficit. Without  getting to overly complicated…

When you restrict calories and carbs for too long, thyroid levels down regulate causing an overall slowing of the metabolism. This means you that everything you will be doing is actually counterproductive.

That’s why people may find going on an extremely low carb and calorie diet will work wonders, but only for so long.

It takes 3-5 days for this to occur so to prevent this you need to eat more calories and carbs every 3-5 days depending on how much fat you want to lose and how much muscle you want to maintain or even build.

D: Oh ok so a typical person can stay on their low carbohydrate diet but every 3-5 days they need to eat more calories and carbs?

G: Yeah for long term success this is huge. Because a diet is only as good as how long you can stay on it.

D: Yeah that makes sense and surely there would be other positives from doing this as well yeah?

G: Absolutely, my clients and myself agree that by topping up every 3-5 days it keeps you happy and sane. Everyone has been on a low carb diet and they suck! You get moody, tired, your sleep turns to shit and so many other things.

But with cycling your carbs you always see light at the end of the tunnel which sets you up for long term dieting which is the key to getting results.

D: Wow! That’s some powerful stuff right there, what about a training mistake?

G: I find when it comes to losing body fat without cardio, people immediately bump up the reps. Now I’m not going to say that high rep training doesn’t work. But what I will say is that low rep training works just as well.

Last year when I got into incredible shape when I was preparing for a contest, all I did were 3 exercises…

 1 Arm Shoulder Press, Pullups and Wheel rollouts.

I wasn’t training legs at the time because I was a couple weeks away from surgery. And I was doing ladders so I’d do 1 Shoulder press, 1 pull up then 2 shoulder presses and 2 pull ups and so forth until I got to 5. I did that 3 days a week and got ripped as.

D: Yeah that’s crazy I can see now why you mention in the trench experience.  I read a lot and I haven’t really come across a compelling article yet that claims to do low rep training when you want to get ripped. If anything these articles are against it.

G: Yeah that’s why I like Dave Tates quote “fuck science, show me what you can do under the bar”.

D: Yeah I’ve heard of that. So what’s your view then when it comes to rep ranges for getting burning body fat without cardio?

G: Well look I’ve done it with low rep, a friend of mine Dave Nelson has done it with high reps so my answer is why not do both?

D: Yeah that’s so true, so how would you program that?

G: Ok well there is a few ways…

One way you can do one month of high rep training and then one month low rep training.

Another way is to incorporate high and low throughout the week for example…

Monday – low reps, Wednesday – high reps and Friday – medium reps. This is how I set  up my RWC workout on my blog.

D: Yeah I noticed that, I really like that program. By the way, will you bring out any more phases for RWC?

G: Thanks bro, yeah I plan to in the next few months.

D: Ok sweet, I can’t wait. Sorry for jumping off topic.

G: No prob’s, and the other the other way is to incorporate it all into one session for example start your main lift with reps low then your next 2 exercises medium reps and then finish off high rep training.

D: Nic stuff man. Alright let’s get onto the big discussion that’s on everyone’s mind. Why you hating on cardio so much??

G: Hahaha Yeah I guess it’s no secret that I’m not a fan so let me clear up the confusion.

For starters the human body was not designed for long duration work, it was designed for short burst such as sprinting to catch our food or really slow stuff such as walking as a way from getting from A to B.

Running at a medium pace for 50+ minutes is just not meant for the body.

Even animals, apart from birds, I cannot think of any other animal that runs continually. They either walk to get somewhere or sprint to catch food or get away from prey.

And I mean you look at the most ripped animals such as cheetahs, tigers and panthers that’s all they do.

So it just doesn’t make sense to me for someone to jump on a treadmill and run continuously for 50+ minutes.

The best from of cardio for getting ripped is either walking or sprinting that’s it!

If you’re going to walk the best is on an empty stomach before breakfast. And the reason it’s better to sprint up a hill as opposed to flat ground is because you don’t hit top speed where you are at greatest risk of an injury.

D: Ok sure, that makes sense, I’ve never really thought of it that way. So where do finishers fit in?

G: Finishers should only be placed at the end of a weight training session and they should only go for 5-10 minutes, not an hour.

D: So don’t do them on your off days?

G: Nah they can interfere with recovery times so the only thing you should do is walk, sprint or maybe some skipping.

D: Skipping?

G: Yeah its easy on the joints and doesn’t mess with your CNS to effect recovery times or anything. Skipping is awesome. Afterall, it’s worked for boxers all these years.

D: And hill sprints, how often a week should someone do them?

G: Twice a week would be plenty.

D: Fantastic stuff Grant, thank you so much for this interview I really appreciate it. I think we should wrap it up there. So for those that would like to learn more about your stuff, where should they go?

G: No probs thanks for having me, it was good fun. Just hit up www.CardioHaters.com… peace!

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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 play 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…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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After I moved onto a superset of BB Shoulder Press and Ring Pullups.

I’ve been doing hang clean and presses for a while and decided to switch back to the good ol’ Shoulder Press. I was very disappointed with it, I thought I would at least hit 65-70kg. But feel short and only hit 55 x 5.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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As for the ring pullups I was really happy with the number. The reason why I use rings is because they allow natural movement. Too much straight bar pull ups and chin ups lead to wrist, elbow and shoulder problems (and I can vouch for that).

First set was with 1 chain for 5. Second set 2 chains for 5 and then the last 3 sets were 3 chains for 5. Here’s my last set…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Finally I moved onto my favourite finisher… The Log Hang Clean & Press.  I just did one, balls out max set and I think I banged out 27 reps.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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In the videos my bodyweight is sitting at about 79kg… Which is horrible, and I’m quite embarrassed about. Turns out my skinny maggot genetics are still in full effect after 2 weeks off training from having the flu, and being stressed out like a mofo.

Current goals are to get to somewhere between 85-90kg and have double body weight squat, body weight shoulder press and body weight + half body weight pull up.

I’ll keep ya posted.

Let me know if you have any questions of comments below…

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