Josh Hillis' Fat Loss and Fitness

The 300 Workout Revisited

It's been 5 months since the movie 300 came out, and the legend of the "300 reps" workout and the hardcore training at Gym Jones took the fitness world by storm.  Over a million people came by this site just to read my commentary on the now legendary "300 Reps" workout.  It opened people's eyes to a new level of intensity in fat loss workouts, and a new level of functional movement.

So what did you do?

There were a lot of different routs you could go.  Some people devoured the Gym Jones website and followed the same day by day workouts that the actors followed exactly.  Smart. 

Some people just did that one workout, aka "300 reps", over and over again.  Not as smart.

Some people moved on from there to The Russian Kettlebell Challenge or Enter the Kettlebell.  Some to CrossFit.  Some started reading the Performance Menu or Get Up!.  Or Turbulence Training.  Some people got my book, The Stubborn Seven Pounds.  Some people got Power to the People.  Some people went to T-Nation. 

No matter which route you went workout wise, you undoubtedly made quantum leaps in your strength and conditioning.  The question is, did you pair that with a smart enough nutrition plan to get the body you wanted also?

Here we are, a week before 300 drops on DVD.  Tell me what you've done with your strength and conditioning in the last 5 months.  How did the 300 actor's training alter your fitness?  What changed?  Did you get what you wanted?  Did it leave a lasting impression?  Does the movie still get you pumped? Post your story to comments.

If you want to re-visit the old articles:

Frank Miller movie 300 actor training - The 300 Workout

"300 Reps Workout" Part 2: How To Do It

How To Do Floor Wipers

All "300 Reps Workout"  Exercises Demonstrated

"300 Opinions": Mark Twight's Response

Profiles of people who did "300 Reps", and how they modified the workout to their fitness level:

What Happens When Girls Do 300?

Real Men Do 300

The Fastest 300 in Denver

Workout Routine Expert Craig Ballantyne Does 300 

Jenna Does Sparta

How Fat Loss Lies Stop Your Success

By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Are fat loss lies ruining your chances of success?

I sincerely hope that your 2007 workout and nutrition plan is already wildly successful and that you are well on your way to  achieving your fat loss and fitness goals. But if you aren't, let me know why and what I can do to help.

Many people's programs suffer from misconceptions about fat loss - i.e. that cardio must be done everyday - and also false perceptions about how well they are eating.

I've reviewed hundreds of client evaluations forms in my career, and just recently I reviewed 5 more for a transformation program we   are working on over at Men's Health magazine.

And time and time again I see the same problem.

I have one question on my feedback form that asks the client:

"Do you eat lots of fruits and vegetables?"

Almost everytime the client's answer is "Yes".

On the next page, I have the client list their food intake.

And guess what rarely shows up?

If you guessed fruits and vegetables, you'd get a prize if I were giving them away.

There are too many inconsistencies in our thoughts and actions when   it comes to weight loss.

And the misguided notions that well-meaning fitness articles heap on   us simply adds to the ever-growing confusion.

Here I want to shed some light on some of the most common misconceptions about training and dieting for fat loss.

The more I discuss weight loss and read the research, the more I   realize fat loss results come from your nutrition, and that training is just a relatively small part of the equation.

But knowing this "truth" allows me to confidently design shorter fat loss workouts than most people traditionally use or expect are necessary.

Listen, you can spend 60 minutes on a cardio machine if you want.   Sure you will burn 500 calories during that session, but your   metabolism won't be significantly elevated after exercise AND   you'll still have to find some time to do the mandatory strength   training that a beautiful and healthy body requires.

Or you can do what I suggest...

Scrap the long, slow, excruciatingly boring cardio workouts and instead stick to a much more manageable approach of...

A bodyweight movement warmup (5 minutes)
Turbulence Training Strength Training Supersets (20 minutes)
Turbulence Training Interval Training (20 minutes)

Done only 3 times per week, these 45 minute workouts still burn   plenty of calories during training (300-400 calories), but the   workouts also boost your metabolism for hours and hours (some   research suggests up to a day and a half!), therefore burning far   more NET calories AND fat than slow, mind-numbing cardio.

All you really need are some short intense training sessions to boost your metabolism and sculpt your body. And then you really   just have to trust your nutrition to strip the fat.

Look at it this way...imagine you are carving an ice sculpture out of a block of ice. Your nutrition would be responsible for lopping off the big chunks to get down to only the amount of ice you need...and the Turbulence Training workouts would be responsible   for chiseling in the details of your final sculpture.

As no matter how much confusing information there is about exercise, the debate over the best way to eat for fat loss is always much more ridiculous.

(That's why I went to a credible and sensible source - Dr. Chris Mohr, Ph.D. - for the TT Fat Loss Nutrition Guidelines.)

As far as dieting misconceptions go, I think too many nutritionists   are trading political correctness for results. In my opinion, PC diets don't work.

Take a look at the American Diabetes Association...they still make   room for sugar in a diabetic's diet - because they don't want to deprive anyone of sugar.

Well that's not going to work. You have to make sacrifices. You have to stick to at least a 90% nutrition compliance if you want big-time results.

You can't go with the political correct approach of "having a little bit of your favorite foods everyday so that you don't deprive yourself".

Think about the person that has your dream body - whether it's a   cover model, your neighbor, a TV star, or the fittest person down   at your gym. Do you think they haven't made sacrifices? Of course   they have. They've done the work to get their reward.

Now its your turn!

You have to get strict and stick to whole, natural foods (fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, and nuts) if you want to succeed.

You need to accept that every action has consequences...

If you want to live a lifestyle where you don't deprive yourself of daily treats, that's fine. But realize the consequence of this action will be that you will always remain a few pounds of fat away   from your goal.

According to your actions, you value your treats higher than you value your fat loss success.

But if you place your desire for fat loss success above your desire   to eat junk, than the consequences will be that you will reach your   body composition goals. It's that simple. We all get what we   deserve and unless someone is holding a fork to your mouth, you are   responsible for your own success.

And my last "non-PC" tip on dieting...almost all the people that tell me they are eating very well are lying to themselves and to me - as I mentioned before based on my client feedback experiences.

So do what Dr. John Berardi calls a compliance grid. Take a piece of   paper and make a 6x7 grid (6 meals over 7 days). Then check off   each time you eat according to plan and mark an "X" for each time   you miss your goals.

Realize that you only have 4 mistake meals for an entire week if you want to stick to the 90% compliance.

Most of the time this is a bucket-of-cold-water-to-the-face wake up   call to people. They quickly realize their nutrition compliance is   much closer to 75% than 90%...and that explains why they aren't   getting anywhere.

So the bottom line for fat loss:

1) Nutrition is where the hard work really is for fat loss.

2) The workouts don't have to be super-long to get fat loss results. You just need short, intense, and efficient. And that's what my workouts are all about. Nothing fancy, no rocket science,   just FUN workouts that are over quickly...and who wouldn't want   that considering today's busy lifestyles.

Sincerely,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

The single best exercise for fat loss

In this video, RKC (kettlebell instructor) Lisa Schaffer gives an awesome lesson on how to do the kettlebell swing.

The kettlebell swing is one of the best, if not THE best exercises for fat loss.

It's a lot less wacky than it looks, once you get the hang of it.  It's an exercise that is all glutes and hamstrings.  There are no arms involved, unless you're doing it wrong.  Your arms are like rope, the kettlebell is like a wrecking ball.

It's snappy and explosive, like throwing a punch.

It really blurs the lines between weight training and cardio.

Sometimes people are worried it will hurt your back, once again, only if you do it wrong.  If you use your arms or round your back forward, it will be terrible.  If you use your hips to project the kettlebell up, and keep your back arched at the bottom, then it's one of the best things that you could be doing for your back.

*Of course, if you have a serious back condition like a herniated disk or something, you'd want to clear this with the doc first.

Watch this video a couple times.  Listen to Lisa, the kettlebell instructor who is teaching the move.  Your first month working with kettlebell swings treat your training like practice, instead of a workout.  Once you get in the groove, kettlebell training is unbelievably fun and effective.  Fun and effective is a powerful and addicting combination.

If you are looking for certified russian kettlebell instructors in your area, you can use this website: http://www.dragondoor.com/instructors.html

In The Stubborn Seven Pounds I teach "kettlebell" swings with dumbbells and gripper plates, because everyone already has those in their local gym.

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 Level II Certified Instructor (RKC2)

© Joshua Hillis 2007

 

Janet Jackson proves 41 is the new 25

Madonna has been proving it for years - you can look like a rockstar at 40.  Of course next year she's going to prove that you can look like a rockstar at 50.  I guess you might as well look unbelievably hot while you're cranking out hit records for 30 years. 

Like LL Cool J once said: "I need to have a body like this, it matches my watch and my car."

Madonna's workout routine has achieved near legendary status - something like three workouts a day.  ashtanga yoga, weights, kickboxing, she does it all.  In fact she does it all nearly every day.  If you're doing that much working out, I guess that power plate workout thing can't hurt either right?  I think your third or fourth workout of the day can be anything you want =)

One thing that's cool to see is Janet Jackson.  Janet just made her second or third comeback, workout wise.  What I like about Janet is that she sticks to smart workout basics, and eats really clean.  Once again, Janet looks like a rockstar - which is good because she is a rockstar.  And even more impressive, Janey isn't working out 3 hours per day.  Nothing against working out three hours per day, but I don't have the time for that and I'm a freakin' personal trainer.

Lots of people talk about how your metabolism slows down as you get older.  The research I've read says pretty clearly that the metabolic slowdown is less than 100 calories per day, every ten years.  That's 1/3 of a Hershey bar, every ten years.  That means that 30 years from now, you either need to skip the Hershey bar completely, or go for a hike or lift some weights.  100 calories is something, but it's not much.  Decreasing activity level is much more like the culprit in people's slow steady weight gain.

And everything about the way your body responds to food has to do with your lean body mass.  If you carry a little more muscle, you're going to burn more calories when you are active than someone who has less muscle.

And what continually blows me away is just the difference in energy level between people who workout and people who don't.  I think the energy level drop is probably more pronounced than the metabolic drop.  People who are super fit at 40, 50, 60, ect. are still sailing boats around the world and hiking the Inca Trail.  People who don't work out are usually watching TV, and the older they get, the more time they spend sitting in front of the TV.  Nothing wrong with TV, I love to watch Entourage, but I'd rather be doing something in real life.

Last but not least - a really cool comparison between Janet Jackson and Madonna -

Madonna shows that if you keep after your workouts, you can maintain that wicked body as long as you want.

Janet proves that no matter how much you've let yourself go, if you work hard you can always get the body back.

By Josh Hillis
Author of How To Lose The Stubborn Seven Pounds: Take Your Body from Good to Rockstar.
Josh Hillis is a specialist in getting my clients lean - fast.  Josh usually works with the hardest clients to lean out - women who are already in good shape. He likes the challenge of burning off the stubborn fat.  Josh's book is about how anyone can get that that lean rockstar body they've always wanted.
Josh is a personal trainer in Denver, Colorado.

© Joshua Hillis 2007

Do you have a sporty ass?

I get this question in the gym a lot - "I want to work on my butt, which machine should I use?"  While there are exercises that hit your butt harder than others, the truth is that having an awesome ass is like having awesome abs - you need a great diet and you need an "athletic" workout. 

Ever notice that athletes always have a great butt?  And legs.  And arms.  And abs.  Guess what, they do lots of squats and lunges.  They're strong.  And in Susan's case (she's the world class high jumper in the picture)- she also does lots and lots of jumping. 

I'm a big fan of box jumps.  When the average gym goer does box jumps, they jump almost completely with their calves.  This is kinda lame.  We want the power for our jump to originate with our hips.  We want to get our glutes, hamstrings, our quads and calves in on the action.  So sit your butt back (just like a squat) and then snap your hips up and forward.  Your hips extend (glutes and hamstrings), your legs extend (quads), and then your feet extend (calves).  Triple extension = great for your butt.

I know, some of my consistant readers are already yelling - "Hey what about the hip-pull-through's you wrote about last month?"  To me hip pull throughs are just a squat where the weight is pulling horizontally instead of gravity pulling vertically.  Or you can think of a hip-pull-through like a slow kettlebell swing.  It's a gateway move to other athletic movements.

Bottom line, you need to be doing athletic movements if you want a body like this.  Squats, deadlifts, lunges, box jumps, kettlebell swings.  I run into clients all the time who were totally stoked on their body when they were in high school playing sports.  No surprise there.

Athletic based workout routines always yield better results than machine based muscle isolation workout routines.  When you focus on performance (speed, power, strength) you almost always end up looking hot.  If you train for performance, the body comes with 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)

© Joshua Hillis 2007