A Common Misperception

Contrary to popular belief, lifting weights or lifting heavy will not make you big. Let me repeat lifting weights and lifting heavy WILL NOT make you big or buff. The reason body builders are so large isn't so much how they lift, it's in how much they eat. To get larger you have to create a calorie surplus. If anything, the more you lift and more muscles you create, the more calories your body naturally burns. That means that to get large, not only do you have to not cut down what you're eating, but you have to eat more than before to create a surplus in your body because now it is so efficient in calorie burning. A body builder who didn't eat more and more, would look something like Bruce Lee who was at most 135lbs.

So before you give up on doing any leg exercises or arm exercises in fear of making those areas larger, more muscles will burn more fat in those areas. And if you do notice you are seeing more muscles on your body, it's not because you got bigger, but because you shed some of the layer of fat that was hiding your muscles.



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 Value of Assessments

A common error most people and trainers make when starting a work out program is to not do a proper assessment. They make the mistake of jumping right into a work out and from there just making it harder and upping the ante. That is unreasonable and not based on any science. How can you get to your goals if you have no idea where you are physically today? You are trying to accidentally get in shape. Now let's say due to just probabilities, 1 out of 100,000 gym go'ers will somehow get results blindly without a proper assessment. Now from there, how will they maintain their results when they have no idea how they got their results in the first place? What if they start to lose the results and have no idea why? Because they never knew where their body was, what it needed, and what it responded to in the first place nor did they assess more along the way. It's like running a lab experiment without any data, it would drive scientists crazy. They would be baffled.

And baffled is where most people at the gym are and most trainers are when someone doesn't see any results. Assessments, it's how you will personalize a program for the individual and create a road map to their goal.

If you want to take a trip to NY, how will you get their unless you figure out what your starting city is? A client might just say, I'm fat, or I'm out of shape. That's like saying I'm somewhere in the west coast. The better defined your assessments and goals are, the more realistic reaching your goals become.

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.