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If you're a fighter, or if you just
want to get into "fighting shape", you absolutely have to check into
full body lifts like the clean and jerk and the snatch. Doesn't matter
if you use kettlebells or barbells (Rocky uses both) or even
dumbbells.
I saw this composit picture at popsugar.com and the first thing I had to think of was:
This is why your workout should include squats and lunges.
Both Jessica Alba and Eva Longoria do squats and lunges and circuit training workouts.
Lindsay Lohan, sadly, doesn't look like she's working out much these days. But she was in the middle of the picture. Hey Lindsay, if you need a trainer, I could get you back in rockstar shape in about 6 weeks.
Why do Jessica and Eva base their workouts around squats, lunges, and circuit training workouts? Because it works. Squats and lunges are extremely intense exercises using all of the muscles in the legs butt and thighs. The intensity of using all of those muscles in coordination cannot be replicated with muscle isolating leg machines. The sum is much, much more than the parts.
Squats and lunges have a hormonal response and a level of intensity that burns fat and builds sexy lean muscle. Anyone who is serious about getting that "rockstar body" needs to include these two powerful exercises in their workouts. Eva Longoria's ass does not look like that by accident. It takes smart workout programming and hard work. Jessica Alba is not genetically gifted, most of her family is overweight. She built that body herself through diet and squats and lunges.
I'm continually saddened by all of the nonsense out there. Stupid books, crappy gadgets, and mostly useless supplements are everywhere. Take a look at the options you have in your gym, and notice who is using what equipment:
• In my gym, all of the overweight people are on the ab machines doing thousands and thousands of pointless and ineffective crunches. Crunches are just too low intensity to make any real difference in how their body looks. They just don't know. It's the same as the people who only do long slow cardio, same thing. No intensity = no rockstar body.
• Look at all of the girls that are really, really hot. At some point you always see them squatting or lunging. Or doing some squat or lunge variation, like step ups. Usually they are strong - they aren't squatting with the 3lb plastic dumbbells. They are squatting and lunging with fairly heavy weight. Lots of intensity. They are getting some work done, and it shows in their results. It's actually rare to see a girl squatting who doesn't look good.
Now I understand that not everyone knows the proper form for squatting and lunging. And if you don't know the correct form, these exercises can get pretty sketchy. The last place to learn good squatting form is from the other people in the gym, many are doing it wrong. If you are unfamiliar with the proper form for squats and lunges, you should hire expert instruction. I'm not saying that learning to squat and lunge correctly is easy, I'm saying that it's worth it.
By Josh Hillis
author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) and Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM-PES)
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC) and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC/CAS)
© Joshua Hillis 2007
The one you aren't using.
The body adapts very quickly to any kind of workout routine, whether it's your resitance training program or your cardio program. You should have variation in both at regular intervals.
So if you've been spending most of your cardio time on the same machine for over 6 weeks, it's time to change it up. Your body has developed a mechanical efficiency to that movement. Now if you are a marathon runner and you develop a mechanical efficiency to running, that is a good thing - it means you can run longer with less effort. If you are trying to change your body composition it is a bad thing - you get burn less calories, the workout is less intense, and you get less of an "afterburn" from the same amount of running.
In other words, the longer you do what you are doing, the less and less you get out of it. That's why I run into so many people who have been doing the same cardio routine and the same resistance training routine for a year or more, and haven't gotten any results in months and months. They have adapted. You need to work out smarter than that. One of my old trainers had a shirt that said "No Brain, No Gain."
My recommendation is to switch cardio machines. Switch from what ever you are using now to the least mechanically similar cardio machine. For example, in my gym: Switch from the treadmill, treadclimber , or eliptical to the rowing machine. Then three weeks from now switch from the rowing machine to swimming. And three weeks from then switch from swimming back to the treadmill or eliptical.
Always remember - the body responds extremely well to cycles. Not like "bicicles" I mean cycles of training. All in the world are cycles - day/night, the seasons, ect. Your workouts should move in cycles also.
Also check out my article: Your Cardio Routine Sucks, and Josh Hillis Cardio Rules
And if you are a runner: Weight Training and Cross Training for Runners: Myth vs. Fact
By Josh Hillis
Author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) and Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM-PES)
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC) and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC/CAS)
Not your average workout: Tire flipping, jumping, sprints with a jumpstretch band, runs with kettlebells, turkish get ups with kettlebells, medicine ball throwing, kipping pullups, bear crawls, tuck sits on gymnastics rings, barbell thrusters. Real, oldschool, brutal - full body movements.
You'll notice they aren't doing any curls or tricep extensions, no machines, no pussy bodybuilding "watch yourself in the mirror exercises" crap. It takes real world strength to flip tires and do pullups and squats and sprints. Essentially, the actors were training for performance - and the look came with it.
The average celebrity trainer would have trained the actors to look like Spartan Warriors - Mark Twight put the actors in 300 through workouts that would create the kind of strength and power they would need to be Spartan Warriors.
If you're not up on Mark Twight's gym, Gym Jones, you should check it out. It's a trip. Mark is a world class extreme alpinist. He climbs mountains that no one else in the world has ever climbed before. Ok, I'll do my best to sum up Mark's workout philisophy, as I understand it: Mark believes that there is something that happens on a mountain - when you are totally exhausted and when your life is on the line - that strips away all of the pretense of our modern existance and all that is left is your humanity. That only through pushing yourself to the absolute limit do you truly find out who you are. He strives to create workouts that have that same kind of impact. Hence the Gym Jones tagline: "Power, Speed, Endurance, Suffering and Salvation".
The now legendary "300 Reps Workout", a.k.a. "Spartans, tonight we dine in hell!"
25 pullups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50 floor wipers, 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettlebell, and 25 more pullups.
A common misconception is that they did this workout over and over again. Mark Twight isn't in to repeating workouts often with his athletes. In fact, most of the workouts were probably randomzied. They very rarely, if ever, would they do the same workout twice.
The idea is to do this workout for time - and if you did ever go through
the hell of repeating a workout, to try and beat your time from
before. Like a race. Speed, power and intensity are the keys here.
Ideally you'd complete the circuits in around 20 minutes.
"The 300 Reps Workout" should give you a little bit of a flavor of the workouts the actors from 300 did at Gym Jones.
"You know that every bead of sweat falling off your head, every weight you've pumped -- the history of that is all in your eyes," says Gerard Butler, who played King Leonidas. "That was a great thing, to put on that cape and put on that helmet, and not have to think, Shit, I should have trained more. Instead, I was standing there feeling like a lion."
How To Get Started Training Like One of the 300
Ok, so lets say you want that "spartan warrior" kind of strength - If you are new to full body lifts, you may be wondering where to start. Kettlebells? Bodyweight? Sandbags? Tires? Gymnastics rings? Hey I'd grab on to any one of them that you can get good instruction on.
Without a doubt, the best way (if you've got the nuts) would be to go to Gym Jones and stand on the porch - just like Fight Club.
If you're too far from Salt Lake to train at Gym Jones, then here is where to start: Start off with 50 or 100 reps of the 300 workout. Done at speed, 100 reps is easily enough to crush the average gym goer - so take it easy the first time. You can push the pace and increase the reps after a couple months. And I wouldn't do this exact workout more than once a week. My preference would be to do it even less often than that - to use it as a test once a month.
You're probably pretty familiar with pullups, box jumps, and pushups - so lets get you some solid instruction on the hardcore full body lifts you may not be good at - the kettlebell clean and press and the deadlift. Both exercises that you need to learn how to do correctly.
If you aren't familiar with solid full body lifting, you have a few choices: 1.) Fly out to Gym Jones. 2.) Get some personal coaching from a Powerlifter, Olympic Weightlifter, Strongman, or Highland Games Athlete, 3.) Get some solid instructional material. You absolulely need to learn to do full body lifting if you want to take on workouts like "300".
Enter the kettlebell is literally an entire book on the kettlebell clean and press.
- In The New Rules of Lifting by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove, they talk about that the only study that Lou has ever seen where athletes lost fat and gained muscle at the same time the athletes used only snatches and clean and jerks and their variations. Enter the Kettlebell teaches the kettlebell clean, press and snatch - essential full body lifts.
Power to the People is literally the best video there is on deadlifting:
-deadlifts are absolutely essential to the 300 reps workout. Deadlifts are one of the best exercises there is if you want that Spartan Warrior look - and if you want to really be as strong as you look. Deadlift correctly = get the body. Deadlift incorrectly = jack your back up in a bad way. You need to learn how to do it right.
Check out: The 300 Workout: Part 2
By Josh Hillis
Author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
I'm a specialist in getting my clients lean, fast. I usually work the hardest clients to lean out - girls who are already in good shape. I like the challenge. It's actually easier to lean out guys because guys naturally carry more muscle. My book is about how anyone can get that that lean, rockstar body.
© Joshua Hillis 2007
A question I recently recieved about kettlebells and BJJ.
Q:well, maybe you can just answer this: it seems there is a limited number of chest exercises with kettlebells. is that true? also, what are the pros/cons of doing the full body workouts i see so much three times a week or so, vs concentrating on one area (push, pull, legs, or wahtever) per day?
A:The benefit of full body workouts is this - in BJJ you need full body strength all the time. You don't need a strong chest today and strong legs tomorrow.
Sadly, deadlifting on tuesday and running four miles on thursday means that your strength is seperated. If you were in a situation where you needed to run a mile, deadlift, then run a mile and deadlift, you would be puking your guts out. BJJ is more like the second example than the first. You need to be pushing, pulling, squating - all repeatedly, mostly explosively, often under cardiovascular stress, in five minute bursts. So why wouldn't you train exactly like that?
Kettlebells have no chest exercises. You want to work your chest - then bench and do pushups. Kettlebells are about building explosive power with your whole body, from the ground up. They are also about conditioning.
Just because I use kettlebells does not mean that I only use kettlebells. They are a tool, and a very good and unique tool. But there are lots of tools. Like sandbags and barbells. If you think kettlebells are good, mix in some sandbag training.
Here is the thing about kettlebells - they will never make any sense at all until you train with them. Buy yourself "Enter the Kettlebell" by Pavel, and just start doing it. Use a dumbbell to start. Everything will make sense once you start doing it.
Mark "Rif" Reifkind is a Senior Russian Kettleble Challenge Instructor has a really cool blog about his training. Today he posted pictures of his wife Tracy, the post is called "A Year of KB Training". After one year of kettlebell training, his wife has lost over 100lbs. She went from 245lbs to 138lbs and looks amazing. You have got to check it out -
Rif's Blog - "A Year of KB Training"
for the full story - an the before pictures - check out the first article in this issue of Vitalics Magazine -
http://giryastrength.com/pdf/Vitalics.pdf
I know that most people who have over 100lbs that they would like to lose see it as nearly impossible, unless you're on "The Biggest Loser" TV show and have two workouts a day and meals prepared for you. It's totally amazing to see someone lose that much fat, and reveal a lean toned hot body underneath.
The article in Vitalics is titled "How To Lose 100lbs WIth No Drugs or Surgery In Less Than One Year". And the thing that's so cool is if someone used drugs or surgery to lose 100lbs, they wouldn't look that good, they wouldn't feel that good. They wouldn't be in that amazing of shape and feel that strong and be able to move that well. And they wouldn't feel nearly as proud or inspired about their body. That is why it's so cool to see a transformation like that from diet and exercise - it leaves you with an amazingly strong fit powerful body. You get a body that inspires you.
In the article Tracy talks about how it's not just about looks, it's about her health and being there to take care of her family. She's taking care of herself, so they she can continue to take care of her family. Super, super cool.
It's amazing because it shows you what's possible. I'm so totally pumped. It's a really cool story, the before and after pics are totally inspiring. I love to read stories like that.
I hope Rif and Tracy don't mind me borrowing this picture, but a picture is worth 1000 words:
Can you imagine that Tracy was 245lbs a year ago? It's amazing - now she's healthy, lean, toned, fit, strong, balanced, flexible, and mobile.
Tracey completely transformed her body with kettlebell swings and a clean diet.
I just found Tracy's Training/Diet Blog. I think keeping a blog is a really cool way to manage your training log and food journal, and it takes real guts to make it public. I strongly recommend keeping a training log/food journal, and making it a public blog is a great form of accountability.
Also check out Girya Kettlebell Training, their gym. I think it's somewhere in the Palo Alto area. If you are anywhere around there, I definately recommend training with them.
Quote from Tracy: "I often say that dieting changed the size of my body and KB training changed the composition. Not only am I 130lbs., but around 20% bodyfat!"
Life will bring you to your knees and keep you there. Permanently. If you let it.
It's not about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit. And keep moving forward. Keep moving forward.
If you know what you're worth, go out and get it. But you have to be willing to take the hit.
My other Rocky Balboa Articles:
The Rocky Balboa Workout
The Rocky Balboa Movie Trailer
Rocky/Sly fan edited training clip
1.) The Adductor (Inner Thigh) Machine
If you sit all day your inner thighs are super tight, and your outer thighs are super weak. This imbalance causes your knees to pull in. Three reasons you don't want your knees pull inward: 1.) There is nothing sexy about being knock kneed. 2.) If your knees pull in then your legs do a really crappy job of absorbing and redistributing force. That means that you run slower, you bike slower, what ever you do, you suck at it compared to what you could do if your legs were allowed to work properly. Here in Denver, that means that when you snowboard or ski you will get tired twice as fast, because your legs aren't absorbing and redistributing force correctly. 3.) You are more likely to hurt your knees if they pull inward. Sometimes this can be a pretty major knee injury, somtimes it's that nagging knee pain after a workout.
What you want to do is stretch your inner thighs. Then do most of your leg work with lunges and squats. Watch you knees in the mirror to make sure that they are tracking straight with your toes. In other words, watch to make sure that your knees aren't pointing in or out when you squat - your knees should be pointing the exact same direction as your toes.
2.) Any Exercise For Your Calves
Stand up. Take a look at your feet. Do they angle out or do they stay straight?
If you sit all day, you have super tight calves. If you wear high heels a lot, you have really super ultra tight calves. This pulls your toes outward. Check all of the things that are wrong with imbalances from up above on tight inner thighs: Looks weird andmore injuries being the two biggest things.
The time you used to spend working your calves would be better spent stretching them. Or foam rolling them. Or even better - foam roll them and then stretch them.
3.) Way Too Many Pressing Exercises
Ok, so I'm not actually against pressing exercises. I'm against how completely out of balance everyone is with their pushing (pressing) and pulling.
By pushing exercises I mean any barbell bench press, dumbbell bench press, machine chest press, shoulder press, ect. By pulling exercises I mean any pullups, assisted pullups, body rows, bent over rows and seated cable rows.
Most everyone I train is about ten times stronger in their pressing than they are in their pulling. What this does is exaggerate the forward shoulders that everyone gets from working on a computer all day. Couple that with the forward head you get from working on a computer all day, and you end up looking all slumped forward and dumpy. It's having tight pressing muscles and weak pulling muscles.
Balance it out by spending more time and energy pulling.
The Bottom Line
You'll look way hotter with good posture. People with good posture look taller, thinner, and more confident.
Make sure your workout program isn't stocked with exercises that are making your posture worse.
By Josh Hillis
author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer (NASM-CPT) and Performance Enhancement Specialist (NASM-PES)
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC) and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC/CAS)
© Joshua Hillis 2006
