Josh Hillis' Fat Loss and Fitness

This video just makes me happy

Video from the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor Certification in Denmark.

Big ups to my good friend Dave Whitley (from www.irontamer.com) for performing some superhuman stunts with multiple 106lb kettlebells.

Your Questions Answered!

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for the fat loss roundtable with Craig Ballantyne, Lyle McDonald, Jimmy Smith, Alan Aragon, and me.  My friend Geo interviewed us, and we all answered each question.  It was a really really amazing experience, and a really cool, really unique interview.  Geo is in the process of setting up the page so that you can get a copy when it goes on sale.

In the mean time - you guys asked so many questions specifically to me, that Geo interviewed me a SECOND time, and this one we're giving to you guys for free - just to say thanks for submitting so many good questions, and thanks for reading my articles. 

You can listen to the interview streaming here, or you can download it and listen to it on your iPod. 

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),
and currently studing the Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM-CES)˚ credential.
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC)* and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC2/CAS)

*RKC certified 2004-2006, registered to recertify 2007
˚NASM-CES will be completed 2007

© Joshua Hillis 2007

The Three Biggest Mistakes People Make Doing Cardio and The Rowing Machine Fat Loss Turbocharger Video

 

I'm a big fan of shorter, faster, harder cardio.  Here Will rows 500 meters in a wicked fast 1:40.  Think you can beat him?  I get a kick out of checking out my client's times agains the fastest times at Concept2.com.  According to C2, there are only 11 people in Colorado faster than Will at 500 meter intervals.

The three biggest mistakes people make doing cardio:

1.) Too long.

2.) Too slow.

3. Too easy.

This workout should fix all three.

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),
and currently studing the Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM-CES)˚ credential.
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC)* and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC2/CAS)

*RKC certified 2004-2006, registered to recertify 2007
˚NASM-CES will be completed 2007

© Joshua Hillis 2007

Do Hot Girls Lift Heavy Weights?

At a bodyweight of 115lbs, Samantha Turnbull can snatch 156lbs (take the weight from floor to overhead in one graceful movement).  Samantha can also clean and jerk (floor to overhead in two movements) 187lbs -  that's 1.6 times her bodyweight.

When you think of Olympic Weightlifting, do you imagine really ginormous dudes?  If so, you are thinking of weightlifters in the biggest weight classes.  Weightlifting is actually about strength to weight ratio; It's a sport how much weight can you lift compared to your bodyweight.  It's a sport where competitors come in all sizes.  For women, the weight classes are: 53 kg (116.8 lb), 58 kg (127.8 lb), 63 kg (138.9 lb), 69 kg (152.1 lb), 75 kg (165.3 lb), and 75+ kg .

Lifting heavy isn't going to bulk you up like a guy unless you are eating way way too much food.  Usually, the hottest girls are always the strongest.  Even the girls lifting enough weight that they are strong enough to go to the Olympics.

Another note:  You'll notice that Olympic Weightlifter's competition lifts are the snatch and the clean and jerk - some of the hardest and most savage full body lifts there are.  Also some of the most graceful skill moves you'll see in the gym; I believe the snatch and the clean and jerk are as beautiful as anything a gymnast does.  Typically Oly Weightlifters will also supplement with squats, lunges, overhead presses, and then ever more sport specific exercses.  Girls who do Olympic Weightlifting are typically wicked hot, and it has everything to do with being strong and doing full body lifts. 

I am all about having my fat loss clients do full body lifts.  I'm a huge fan of squats, lunges, and overhead pressing.  With my clients I typically have them do snatches and clean and jerks with kettlebells instead of barbells, but that's mostly because I feel like the kettlebell versions are easier for me to teach, and easier for my clients to learn.  But that could just be my bias because I'm a kettlebell instructor.

It's fun to lift heavy, it'll also give you a rockstar body.

Check out this really cool video about Samantha Turnbull, one of our strongest Olympic hopefuls in Weightlifting:

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),
and currently studing the Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM-CES)˚ credential.
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC)* and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC2/CAS)

*RKC certified 2004-2006, registered to recertify 2007
˚NASM-CES will be completed 2007

© Joshua Hillis 2007

New York Times Article on Interval Training Cardio

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/fashion/03Fitness.html?em&ex=1178424000&en=a4b09d745ebe6f1a&ei=5087%0A

Some of article's highlights:

This alternating fast-slow technique, called interval training, is hardly new. For decades, serious athletes have used it to improve performance.

But new evidence suggests that a workout with steep peaks and valleys can dramatically improve cardiovascular fitness and raise the body’s potential to burn fat.

Doing bursts of hard exercise not only improves cardiovascular fitness but also the body’s ability to burn fat, even during low- or moderate-intensity workouts, according to a study published this month, also in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Eight women in their early 20s cycled for 10 sets of four minutes of hard riding, followed by two minutes of rest. Over two weeks, they completed seven interval workouts.

After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent, said Jason L. Talanian, the lead author of the study and an exercise scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles — improved by 13 percent.

It didn’t matter how fit the subjects were before. Borderline sedentary subjects and the college athletes had similar increases in fitness and fat burning. “Even when interval training was added on top of other exercise they were doing, they still saw a significant improvement,” Mr. Talanian said.

Interval training does amount to hard work, but  the sessions can be short.

The Grindhouse - Planet Terror Workout

Grindhouse: The next big movie workout...

Movie workouts are all the rage this summer, and the underground cult zombie flick "Planet Terror" from the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse is no exception.  Grindhouse movies were famous for three things: Gratuitous violence, gratuitous sex, and wicked hot girls.

Robert Rodriguez' part of the Grindhouse double feature is a zombie flick called Planet Terror.  It's the zombie look we are going to focus on today.  For all of my readers out there who are hell bent on becoming dead sexy.

Why stop at looking like a rockstar?  Go all the way to zombie.  Get that hard, lean, toned body that says "You good lookin thing, don't you ever die."

The Planet Terror/Zombie Workout is a system that's pretty hard to pass up - immortal good looks, superhuman strength, and no long boring cardio ever.

Ok, actually it's more of a diet.  Eat all brains, all the time.  It's kind of like Atkins.  And like Atkins or any other ketogenic diet, you have to make sure you eat lots of fiberous vegetables to keep your digestive track healthy.

The Workout

Everyone knows how powerful bodyweight exercises and combat sports can be for fat loss.  There is something about the intensity and variation that always leads to better body composition and increased fitness.  Anyone who has adding wrestling, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or boxing to their workout program knows what I'm talking about.  Zombie dismemberment is no exception.  In fact I'd argue that dismembering people is even MORE intense than other combat sports.

The other advantage is that you can dismember and disembowel people without going to the gym.  I'd go so far as to say that any place that you can find a mall or shopping center, you have ample people to dismember.

Most people make the mistake of having too little variety in their training programs.  They'll do the same things day in and day out for months, even years - then wonder why they haven't seen results.

The thing about the zombie workout is that there is endless variation - you never know what the people are going to do.  Some days you may be sprinting after people, other days you may be wrestling around trying to eat their brains.  Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.  It's that kind of variation and intensity that is going to break through plateaus and help you burn off that stubborn fat. 

Possible Downsides

The workout has often been criticized for it's over reliance on pulling exercises - ripping apart limbs, pulling out entrails, ripping boards off of windows ect.

The keen observer will notice the knees coming way out over the toes.  Unlike the vertical motion of squatting and deadlifting, ripping out entrails puts relatively little sheer force on the knee.  The forward knee position is required for balance, and is in many ways similar to the rooting stances in Chinese martial arts.

Another benefit of being undead is that you no longer need to worry about arching your back.  Where normal human beings have to arch their back to protect the muscles, ligaments, and bones in the lower back, as a zombie your lower back is protected by supernatural evil.

Sport Specific Postural Distortions

The same way that marathon runners tend to get overdeveloped outer thighs (abductors) that pull their knees outward causing them knee pain, zombies also have sport specific postural distortions.  All of the time spent with the shoulders hunched forward and arms out turns into a really overdeveloped version of the "computer posture" you may be getting just sitting in your cubical at work.  Tight pecs, lengthened scapular retractors, tight shoulders, tight neck muscles.  Everything about it says chronic neck pain.

I'm only going to say this once:  If you are going to be a zombie, you must stretch your neck and shoulders after every workout.

For the new zombie trainer - scalability

I know I know - As much as you loved Grindhouse and want the look, you're afraid you aren't in good enough shape to be a zombie.  It's the whole chicken and the egg thing.  But don't fear, that hard zombie body is available to anyone at any fitness level.  The answer is scalability.

So lets say that you aren't ready yet to chase people down at the mall and eat their brains.  You have to start slow, and build up.   

For starters, just chase your dog around the yard.  Note: Don't eat your dog's brains!   You'll need to work up to that also.   Once you can catch your dog, then start chasing around the neighbor's kids.  Note: Don't eat their brains!  First, when zombies eat brains, they gain their knowledge.  The last thing you need is all of the Pokemon characters names stuck in your head.  Second, your neighbor will never let you hear the end of it.

How to build up to eating brains:  Start with going to the local taco stand and ordering two tacos cabeza.  Now cabeza can be a couple things: Lengua is cow tongue, orejas is cow ears, and sesos is cow brains.   So be specific and make sure you are getting sesos.  Keep in mind that when you are eating people's brains, you might not have any onions or cilantro on hand.

If you have further concerns about your form, I recommend multiple viewings of Grindhouse: Planet Terror, Dawn of the Dead, and Evil Dead 2.  If you have a portable DVD player, you can use any of these movies for a follow along workout.

Last but not least, remember it's all about intensity

The Grindhouse - Planet Terror Workout - Part 2: KILLER LEGS

How did Rose McGowan get that rockstar body of hers?  If you think the treadclimber is awesome for cardio now, try it with a machine gun peg leg.  Stay tuned for the second part of this workout, "Killer Legs".  It's all about how to tone up your gun weilding stump.

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),
and currently studing the Corrective Exercise Specialist (NASM-CES)˚ credential.
Russian Kettlebell Challenge Certified Instructor (RKC)* and Combat Applications Specialist (RKC2/CAS)

*RKC certified 2004-2006, registered to recertify 2007
˚NASM-CES will be completed 2007

© Joshua Hillis 2007