Super Human Strength

A Word on the Importance of Practice and Repetition

So inside of our bodies are muscles. Inside of muscles are muscle spindles. Inside of those are cells. Our cells are constantly moving, it's what helps us heal, function, and basically live. With enhanced microscopes you can even see cells moving like glow in the dark worms.

When muscles contract, the cells move even more, in a frenzy. Uncoordinated and wild. Now the more that muscle contracts in the same manner, the better the cells move. It moves smoother, carries better signals, creates patterns. This is the scientific act of muscle memory. Something trainers and martial artists always throw out but have no idea what it really boils down to. The more you practice something, the more your cells remember, the more they remember the better they perform. Scientists have been trying to figure out ways to make cells move, especially to help with healing. All they have determined thus far though, is the best way to make cells move is through constant repetition.

If I teach you a punch, will you be knocking someone out in a day? No. But maybe after years of practice you will be knocking people out professionally. If I show you how to bench, you won't go from 130 to 250 bench over night. That will take years. You don't grow more muscle fibers, your cells just move better. This is true for all physical and athletic endeavors. I apply this especially in my martial arts training. The repetition of gross movements and common movement pattern.

There is one other thing that practice and repetition does. It creates more myelin around your synapses. That means faster signals from your brain to your body. That means no matter how fast someone is, or how many fast twitch muscles they have or explosive training they do, they will never be able to compensate with someone who can send a signal from their brain faster. Not only that it also remembers efficient movement and takes the slack out of your moves, makes you perform better, faster, with less effort. Be it a golf swing to a judo throw.

Muscle memory combined with nervous system memory creates perfection in human performance. This is another secret that separates the elite from the regular Joe.




About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

The Probability of Weight Loss

There is a show I sometimes watch as a guilty pleasure. It is called The Biggest Loser. Yeah that's right, The Biggest Loser. I don't watch it to get inspired or learn anything, I watch it because I find it a very funny and entertaining show. Mainly in how they dramatize weight loss.

The reason I bring this up now is because of a situation that arose on this new season. It was about if a girl was throwing the weigh ins because she didn't lose any weight for 2 weeks. The trainers Bob and Jillian were convinced that she was throwing it. She was emphatic that she was not and it just was not happening. The trainers said that was scientifically impossible...

This is why I'm writing this post. There is an inherent flaw in logic here and if the contestant knew a little bit more she could have stated her case better.

Bob and Jillian made the claim that if you work out hard and eat right there is no way you cannot lose weight based on weight loss science. They said they were 99% sure and how dare she question their knowledge of this science. Oh brother.

Here is what they did not account for in there absolutism and is the reason why you can't have a drug test or book terrorists on a 99% positive ratio. Because lets say in sports, for every 10,000 athletes tested, there will be 100 false positives. For every 100,000 citizens investigated, there will be 1,000 false arrests.

So even though Bob and Jillian were so sure, for every 100 contestants, there will be at least 1 contestant who will sometimes not lose weight. Was this contestant the one? I don't know, but was there a major failure in scientific rationale and logic? Yes.

So let me swing this back to you, the average gym goer. Sometimes you will do everything right and still not lose weight. It's unlikely but it happens. Maybe for every 1,000,000 people working out, it will happen to 10,000 people. That's 99%.

Here is the important part to learn. It happens. THAT'S SCIENCE! But for every time you work out and do it right with all out effort, you exponentially increase your chances of success. For every time you don't go work out, you decrease your chance of success to 0. That is the only guarantee and absolute. Try and eventually you will succeed. Don't try and you will fail. That's 100%.



About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

Beyond Circuit Training

I always talk about the glass ceiling that separates the out of shape people in the country to our elite athletes. The difference is in their training techniques. Here is another example, beyond gym circuits, there is something called the complex. It's quicker, more intense, more efficient, and more effective. It's hard for beginners and may take some getting used to but the eventual results gained will be huge!

How Long Before I See Results?

This is a question I get asked all the time. How long to reach my goal, how long to see results? It's all very subjective and has a lot of factors involved. A lot of it is determined by you. How you choose to eat, how determined you are in your work outs, your lifestyle, sleep pattern, and activity level. Proper training will get you there, how fast is really up to you. Remember it's a collaboration.

One thing I will tell you though is, it's much quicker to look fit than to be fit. Do you just want to look like you are in shape, or do you want to be in shape? This is one of the first questions you should ask yourself before you start a work out regiment. The clearer your goals are, the easier you will get there. You want the quick journey with superficial results that will go away easily or do you want to change for good?

Athletes look fit and ARE fit. Choose wisely.

Welcome to Euro Training

As funny and incorrect as this video is, admit it, some of you DO work out like this!

A Word on Prehabilitation

Here is a word on training safety and how to properly warm up and stretch. Some ideas on joint range of motion and muscle stretching. Far too often people try to stretch out their joints, whether it's their hips or knees or back, and they try to work their muscles in their range of motion. This leads to serious injury!

Enjoy.





About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

Fitness Level Rankings

If you were to organize personal fitness into belt rankings like you do for the martial arts, this is what it would look like. As you will see, there are a lot of parallels between fitness and martial arts.

White Belt - Like 99% of most gym goers, a white belt is a white canvas. Unsure of what exercises to do, how to reach their goals, how to perform exercises properly, how to eat, how to stay motivated, how to maximized their time and effort, how to see results. Just like in the martial arts, the white belt also has a little ego, thinks they came in with knowledge...

Blue Belt - Knows a lot of exercises and how to do them well. Learning discipline and how to stay focused on their goals. This is where most people will plateau. This is where it's dangerous, where they have the most ego, know just enough to think they know it all.

Purple Belt - Knows most exercises and how to do them properly. Also knows the concepts of working out so when shown a new exercise, they can immediately do them with good form. Knows the fundamentals of diet and how to reach their goals. This is the hardest level to reach...

Brown Belt - Has an iron will. Knows most exercises, and can teach a beginner how to do them. Understands the concepts of breath control and form. Understands how to use diet to shape the body or increase performance. Does not quit or give up. Does not need a lot of equipment or time to have a total body work out, and always pushes it hard each time.

BLACK BELT - The end goal that every person wanting to be healthy should ultimately achieve. The combination of mind, body, and spirit to achieve: health, vitality, and longevity. Has no ego, will learn from anyone. The true athlete. Only trains with all out effort.

Now leave your egos at the door. Tie your belt right and let's get started!

CNN on Personal Training

I really enjoyed this article. Some of the memorable lines:

"I don't want to battle you. I'd hope someone thinks of it as a collaboration." - We all want the same thing right?

"Machines can end up doing the work for you." - Athletes don't use half as many machines as we do. Their body is the only thing that ends up becoming a machine.

Check it out:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/05/trainers.new.year/index.html

Why Do We Plateau In Our Work Outs

This is a brief explanation of why after a while, we stop seeing results in our work out routines.

Our bodies will always try to maintain an constant state of balance, and in doing so it has a exceptional ability to adapt to any changes or environments it's exposed to, such as exercise. Once the body has adapted to the exercise that's being performed, it has no reason to continue to change (muscle development and fat loss). It is in this time of adaptation and halting of any physical and physiological change that is called an exercise plateau. These plateaus are very common among frustrated gym members who appear to be exercising for long periods of time, yet see no body composition change or worse, sometimes they gain weight (fat gain). This leads to loss of motivation, the kiss of death basically.

For an individual to decrease body fat, they must maintain a negative energy balance forcing a loss of fat to occur. Basically using more calories than they are taking in. As one begins a work out program, a caloric loss has begun via the initial calories being expended through exercise and all the physiological changes that occur to adapt to this new change.

These adaptations include:

• Increased motor unit recruitment (coordination)
• Decrease in resting heart rate
• Increase in mitochondrial density (muscle tissue)
• Body fat reduction
• Weight loss

As an individual continues the same work out program for a series of weeks, the above adaptations have occurred and the calories used to produce these changes are no longer being used (your body is more efficient at these exercises and needs less calories to do them). The work out themselves become easier to perform due to these adaptations, so another decrease in the number of calories burned during exercise. This is the body's way of closing the caloric gap created by the initial work out and maintain a state of balance, plateauing is the end result. The body does not want to lose calories! It's a way to preserve itself.

As mentioned earlier, for you to lose body fat you must maintain a caloric loss, either by increasing calories burned (exercise), decrease caloric intake (food) or a combination of both. For the calories burned component, it is important that you use a variety of training methods in manipulating your exercise program in a systematic fashion to provide a new stimulus to adapt to. If you have no training methods, then that is a bigger issue. Change can come in the form of changing variables, exercises, planes of motion, sensory change in a resistance training program or in duration, frequency, intensity, and mode of manipulation (treadmill, rowing machine, stair climber, track, etc) in a cardiorespiratory program.

These are the reasons why most health club and gym rats fail on their own and people with trainers statistically succeed more often. Not only to have someone to teach you, help you, support you, push you harder than you would yourself, but a coach knowledgeable enough to constantly update and refine your work out program so plateaus do not occur. Dieting is great but even with the risk of plateau, nothing creates better change than change that is exercise based.

If you are ready to break though the plateau through an evidence based program, I am here to show you how.

Even Marilyn Monroe Weight Trains!

How Long Should You Work Out For?

I always get perplexed when someone tells me how many days a week they worked out and then how many hours a day they work out... What difference does it make how many hours? And in a bigger sense, how many days? No true athlete trains in a static schedule, its as organic as them!

When I train my clients, sessions can be anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. Why? It's based on effort, not on time (it will never be less than 30 mins because there always needs to be time set aside for prehabilitation - injury prevention and stretching). I will keep stressing that. Some people might say, they want their money's worth and to train for a full hour, that's fine but you won't get the gains you want.

If someone gave me all their effort and was completely spent within 30 mins, if we continue to train more, we will just get a negative return on their energy output level. We will just deteriorate your body. Not only that but in the long run pushing them past than point will just make them hate training. Also different intensities and times adds spice to your work outs, and it won't seem robotic. It should feel like someone is monitoring you and how hard you work out does affect outcome. Feeling like, no matter how hard you try or how you feel does not affect outcome is a terrible feeling and means there might as well be no one supervising you. YOU CAN INEFFICIENTLY TRAIN ALL BY YOURSELF!

So what if you worked out 6 days a week, 2 hours a day. It could mean you are in really great shape, or you are really lazy and take a lot of breaks and don't push yourself very hard (and probably like to talk about or can't decide what machine to use, or worst yet there's a line!).

Some weeks I train 7 days a week. Some weeks I train 3 days a week, it's all based on my level of intensity and what I am trying to accomplish that week or month.

You have to set small goals, get constant feed back, and worry about technique and method as much as result. This is the secret to quick gains.

The Class Lines In Fitness

They say there are class lines drawn between the rich and the poor. The rich know how to get richer and keep the wealth within a certain group, whereas the poor have to work hard to get this valuable knowledge. What about class lines drawn between the fit and the feeble?

One of my good friends who lives in a far away city finally heeded my advice and hired a personal trainer. First thing he asked me was, "Why are these great exercises he showed me not in work out books and online routines?? Are they holding out on us?"

When you see different work out shows or buy different DVDs or go to your local gym and take a class, how come the stuff they show is way different from the exercises they show on documentaries and HBO specials following professional athletes? How come those athletes aren't doing the stuff you are doing? Why aren't they doing the crunches and the thigh adductor machine and doing jumping jacks and plain looking stupid sweating and crawling on the floor?

If the work outs you do or were taught to you were so good, why aren't people who have to make a living off of their bodies doing it? Better yet, why aren't you doing what THEY are doing? They can take any ridiculous work out routine and sell it to you as great by simply calling it a fat burning work out...

Athletes will never do any work out called a "fat burning work out." A work out is a work out, there are either good ones or bad ones. They won't walk into the local health club and gym to see how the common person is working out just as much as a billionaire won't walk into infomercial based real estate seminar to learn how to get rich. BUT MAYBE it's time you learned how an athlete trains and work out at a gym designed for athletes. This is the difference in my training. I want to show the common person how the world's best train.



About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

Add Spice To Your Work Outs

Have you tried adding some martial arts into your work outs? To keep it fresh and progressive, nothing is better functional training than the martial arts. I prefer movements from boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, MMA, and of course my favorite, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! I hold a purple belt in BJJ as well as a rank in Sambo, and years of experience in MMA and kickboxing and wrestling under my belt. I have noticed a trend.

Whatever the sport, be it basketball, football, or MMA, when they get into their athletic stance, it all looks the same!

They have some variation of a staggered lunge or squat with their hands in front of their chest. It looks like the thruster which I demonstrated in my previous post at the bottom of its movement. The reason is all power is generated through upward thrust or torque. So whether someone is shooting a wrestling shot, getting ready to tackle, or jump for a ball, it all looks about the same. Or someone throws a punch, throws a ball, or twists to pass a ball, it also looks the same.

These movements create for more athletic bodies than crunches or isolated body building exercises ever will! You want a strong core? Try generating some power from your core! So next time, add some punches and kicks to your work outs!