Well, I felt the first slight slight nip of cool air this morning, auguring the coming fall, which is depressing for some, and exhilarating for others.  Either way, it's coming.

I speak with a lot of people this time of year who say they feel like a beached whale after too many summer barbecues and a lot of blowing off of their fitness plans.  It's natural.  We're human.  Were not perfect and we shouldn't to be.  BUT, while you're forgiving yourself you excesses, don't get so off the path that you end up regretting.  

As always, I'm here to help with my quick Beached Whale Rehab Workout.  And, yes, that just popped into my head as I am typing this.  Why? Because fitness is the only thing I think about (well, lies, I think a lot about food, wine and my ongoing mixological creations, theater, art, and such).

To keep it real, and to be very honest, I do think A LOT about my clients (past, present, and future) and what I can to do to deserve them.  The word "deserve" comes from the Old French "desservir" which means to be of service, to earn, to merit.  I find it is just who I am, which is probably why I'm so good at what I do.  

Anyway, enough about me - this is about you.  What's up with the Beached Whale workout I mentioned?

Well, it's a twist on what I do with some of my clients when they need a fast, efficient workout that doesn't require a gym (vacation, business travel, etc).  But the twist here is, while it is fast and can be done anywhere, it is extremely effective at burning body fat.  Extremely.  

And you can do it IN 8 TO 16 MINUTES.

If you want to really burn a lot of fat, you're going to have to get a handle on nutrition as well.  I've written about fat loss nutrition before, scroll through my blog and find what you're looking for.  But the basics are really simple.

FAT LOSS NUTRITION 101

If you want to be lean, eat lean.  Full stop.  PROTEIN IS YOUR FRIEND.

SUGAR IS YOUR ENEMY.

Your body has a metabolism and wether it stores calories as Muscle or as Fat depends just as much on what you eat as on how you eat.  You'll find that info in my blog posts as well, and much more.  You may also want to download my 2-page nutrition guide at GetEmpoweredFitness.com/downloads.  The password is metabolism.  It's basic nutrition with rules for HOW to eat on the first page and lists of WHAT to eat on the second.  Fat loss nutrition follows the same rules, but eliminates ALL sugars, and the starchy carbs that your body treats as sugars, as well as alcohol which has 7 kcal of sugar, as opposed to only 4 kcal per gram in carbohydrates and protein

In the Beached Whale program, you'll want to do three such days each week, we'll call them Fat Loss Acceleration Days (FLAs).  It doesn't matter immensely if you do them on workout days or not, The only caveat is that you have to be careful you don't get woozy (technical word, ha) if you're doing an FLA that day.  Got it?  Thats nutrition for now.  Feel free to poke around in my blogs if you're a nerdy type and just always want to know more.  I, myself, am a huge nerd who no one believes is a nerd.  Book by its cover.  

Okay, we have the nutrition under control.  Now, the exercise.  These are the two main components and done properly, create a synergy that is much more powerful than either one on its own.  But before I give you the workout, please commit this adage to your memory: "You can't out train a bad diet". 
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If you have not been exercising regularly and recently, I must inform you that you should consult your physician to get cleared for HIIT (high intensity interval training)
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So, here's where i need you to pay close, close attention.  You may want to read this paragraph twice.  This is SIMPLE because I've distilled it down for you, but that doesn't mean its EASY.  You're going to get great results from remarkably little workout time.  But, nothing is free.  You have to focus really hard, give the kind of effort you probably have yet to experience.  This is serious.  Want to change your body without dedicating your life to it, without chaining yourself to a Bench Press for 2 hours 3 times per week?  Yeah?  Me too.  

INTENSITY is what we need here. Full on. Balls to the wall Intensity.

Here we go: Download a free "interval timer" or "boxing timer" App.

You're going to set it to :30 intervals and for a total time of 8 minutes.  

Now, you're going to choose the appropriate exercises for your fitness level.  I am listing them roughly by most to least intense/hard/advanced.  Choose the most difficult exercises you can do for 30 seconds.  And you can repeat a choice, skip one, whatever.  What the hell does a beached whale know? Ha. (NB: Those of you who know me will know that the beached whale thing is a lighthearted, humorous way for me to diffuse compunctions about weight and fat which as a fitness professional I can tell you have very emotional components.  I take no offense.  And I give none.  i wish not to offend anyone).

If you don't know or are not sure about the proper form for an exercise, I recommend Googling "youtube + (name of exercise).  Very helpful.  Or come to see me or take one of my classes.  If you have appropriate weights available, meaning DBs that are heavy enough to give you a hard challenge within 30 seconds, use for the approbate exercise.  

;30 WORK :30 REST

I recommend 3-5 workouts a week and 1-3 FLA days, depending on how much fat you need to lose. 

EXERCISE LIST:

Burpees (with our without pushup)
Split Jumps
Power/Clapping PushUps
Planked Rows
Deep Squat with Overhead DB Press
Triceps Bench/Chair Dips
Feet On Bench PushUps
Squat Jumps (wide legs, feet turned out, also called gorilla jumps)
Spidermans 
Regular PushUps

Thats a good list.  The ONLY thing that matters here is intensity.  If you finish 30 seconds of an exercise and are not feeling a little beat up, choose the harder exercises.  :30 WORK :30 REST.

As I've said, Ive made this very SIMPLE for you.  But simple is not the same as EASY.  I need you to give me 110% if your goal is the same as mine; that is, your being thrilled with the results.  If you're not "dying" at the end of 8 minutes, you're not doing it right.

Remember this - The magic happens when you go the extra mile.  

And depending on your current fitness level and how you feel after 8 minutes, I recommend doing it gain for another 8.  

Best wishes to all of my fellow recovering beached whales ;-)

I'll be posting my new fall groups in the next day or two once I confirm when I will have space available after my current group members confirm that they are continuing into fall with me. Maybe give yourself a hand up and come do a 10-week program with me.  The small groups are my "recession-proof" way to make getting into your best shape ever very affordable.  Most people can afford $65/week.  Come play with us !!! ;-)

I know, it's sounds counterintuitive, right?  But I promise it is not.  In fact, perhaps the greatest cause of the rampant obesity epidemic in the United States, has been caused by people eating less fats.  Nutritional fat CANNOT be changed into body fat.  It just can't.  And for decades, government scientists have scared us away from eating fats, suggesting that the HUGE base of the food pyramid should be made of bread, cereals, rice and pasta, foods that the body converts to body fat.  They vilified the egg, one of the earth's perfect foods.  And what has it done to our health?  Terrible things.  More than 60% of Americans are overweight and 1/3 are obese.  This has caused an increase in heart attacks, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and many other health problems, which have added $150 Billion dollars to our annual health costs.   

But all fats were not created equal.   We want to be eating more HEAlTHY fats and proteins, and much fewer carbohydrates, processed foods and sugars.  But make sure you are eating the right fats.  

Trans fats (also known hydrogenated fats) should be avoided.  These are in just about every packaged food you will find on the shelves of your grocery store.  Fats from fried foods tend to also be very unhealthy.  

So, what to do, what to eat?  There are a lot of foods that contain healthy fats which in addition to providing your body with nutrients it needs, also have the effect of producing a faster metabolism and better fat-burning.  

The best fats to eat include the following:

1) Fatty Fish, like salmon, tuna, trout and mackerel.  These contain healthy doses of Omega-3 fatty acids which have been shown to reduce the chances of heart disease and stroke. 

2) Nuts, including pecans, walnuts, almonds, cashews, brazil nuts, macadamias and pistachios.  Nuts have a wide variety of protective factors which can do anything from increase weight loss to protect against hardened arteries and cancer.   

3) Whole Eggs.  Yes, not just the egg white.  It is the yolk of the egg that contains all of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals.  And they are NOT a cause of high cholesterol as has been asserted.  The egg is one of the earth's perfect foods, and the yolk is the reason, not the white.

4) Coconut Oil.  Unlike most fats which are made up of long chains of fatty acids, coconut oil's fats are medium-chain.  They go straight from your digestive track to your liver, providing short-term energy.  They have also been shown to protect against brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease and Epilepsy.  

5) Avocados. These are loaded with fiber and more potassium than bananas.  They can lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.  

6) Olive Oil.  Like avocados, the fat contained in olive oil is largely oleic acid.  Oleic acid has been linked to reduced inflammation in the body and also to have beneficial effects on genes linked to cancer.

7) Seeds, like pumpkin, hemp, chia, flax, sesame and quinoa (yes, ti's actually a seed, it just cooks like a grain).  These are very helpful for fat loss and also contain a huge variety of vitamins and minerals.  

Keep in mind that fats, good ones and bad ones, are calorie-dense, containing 9 calories per gram, compared with carbohydrates and proteins which contain 4 calories per gram.  So, do be aware of serving size.  One cup of almonds, for example, contains about 530 calories.  One avocado has about 320 calories.  These foods can be great of snack times when you need a few hundred calories but don't have time for a meal.  

So to keep some of the holiday weight off,  think about replacing some of the fat-storing carbohydrates in your diet with heart-healthy fats which increase your body's fat-burning hormones and can be a major positive step toward better healthy overall.  

Worst. Winter. Ever.  I'm so tired of these single digit temperatures, as I'm sure you are.  BUT.... even if it doesn't feel like it, Spring and Summer are around the corner.  This is the time when we all need some help with our fat-loss strategies!

Have you ever heard of Leptin?  Think of it as the conductor of your body's fat-loss orchestra.  Whether or not you are able to lose fat has EVERYTHING to do with the levels of Leptin in your body AND your body's sensitivity to it.  

Leptin, from the Greek Leptos meaning "thin" also known as  the "satiety hormone", is a hormone made by fat cells which regulates the amount of fat stored in the body. It does this by adjusting both the sensation of hunger, and adjusting energy expenditures.


When you go on a diet, in just the first week, your Leptin levels can drop by as much as 50%.  This will keep you from burning fat no matter what else you are doing, including exercise.  When you go on a diet, your body doesn't know that you are gearing up for your high school reunion or trying to look great in a swimsuit next summer.  It just knows that it is not getting the nutrition it needs.  Fat is seen by your body as useful, for warmth, for stored energy supplies.  And when it detects that it "starving", it will back off Leptin production to hold onto and store more of this important resource.  The perfect equation for the fat-loss plateaus that we have all experienced.  


What can you do about it? (there is good news here)


If you eat well all well all week, it is very important to take a "cheat day", one day per week, in which you increase you caloric intake (by as many as 1000 calories) by eating all of the things that you love - pizza, ice cream, pasta, mac 'n cheese, cookies - in order to allow your body to restore it's levels of leptin.  Sounds good, right?  


Now, we can't eat like this all the time.  JUST on the one cheat day, and then only if you have a week of solid, good nutrition behind you.  My general recommendations for the best nutrition can be found in the first 2 PDFs on my web-site's download page at www.GetEmpoweredFitness.com/downloads.  The password is: metabolism.  

But there is another problem with leptin, and that is that is that even at high levels your body may have become resistant to it.  Why would that happen?  Well, eating fried foods, sugars and simple carbohydrates and even wheat-based foods may be crippling your body's ability to use leptin for fat loss.  Try to avoid these as much as possible (except on your "cheat day").  This includes almost every food found in a box or bag, foods with LONG lists of ingredients, many of which you can't even pronounce.  These foods tend to include GMO corn and soy which are helping to make more and more American's obese.  

Instead, eat foods that have one ingredient, the food itself.  

What's in tomatoes/? tomatoes.
Chicken?  Chicken
Meats
Green Beans
Almonds
Cauliflower
Broccoli 
Sweet potatoes
Steel-cut oats
Quinoa
Lentils
Arugula
Spinach
Blueberries 

These foods all have one thing in common - their only ingredient is the food itself.  And these are the foods you should be eating on a daily basis, at every meal.  These are whole, healthy, natural foods, that will keep your metabolism burning at its fastest rate ever.... until your leptin levels start to fall and you take a "cheat day" to restore those levels.  

By eating in a way that keeps leptin resistance down and taking a "cheat day" to restore your body's leptin supply, you will burn more fat and fat-loss plateaus will become a thing of the past.  

Good to know as we approach Spring and Summer and tank tops and swimsuits replace sweaters and heavy coats.  

From a nutritional standpoint, we want to employ a trick called carbohydrate manipulation. I call this “protein days”, and for most people I recommend doing two to three of these each week during this phase of the program. We will continue to eat small, frequent meals as recommended in my general nutrition plan – if you don't have a copy, you can find it on my web site's download page – the password is: metabolism (no caps). But on protein days, we will eliminate starchy carbohydrates, added sugars, fruits and alcohol. Because you are eating less (roughly one-third of our calories generally come from starchy carbs), we will want to eat more proteins, vegetables and lean dairy products. Fats are okay, too, but try to choose from the list of the best fats on page two of my nutrition guide. 

Sugars (and the refined starchy carbs and processed foods that your body treats as sugars) are your body's preferred source of fuel. And the arch-enemy of fat loss. When we remove these from our diet, the body must turn to it's second choice for fuel – fat.   Now, this is a two-part process: the body must first be in a place hormonally where it is releasing fat from the fat cells, which is the case when the blood-sugar is stabilized because we have been eating small, frequent and balanced meals as suggested. When this is the case, and we remove the sugars, this trick works amazingly well for burning stored fat as fuel. 

This is also the best time in the program to increase your cardio, but lets be clear about what that means.  

This does not mean jogging for an hour on a treadmill or using an elliptical or exercise bike at a steady pace for a long period of time.  If this is how you do your cardio, it's time to put an end to that now - it will only  set into place a mechanism by which you actually ADD fat to your body.  

A great example of this mechanism taking place can be found in the many, many, many “over-aerobicizers” that I meet.  They tell me that they do an hour of cardio most days.  They tell me that they actually weigh about what they should.  And then they tell me that they are terrified of wearing a tank top or a swimming suit.  

Why is this?

It is because they are what I call “skinny fat”.  They spend so much time doing ineffective cardio that the energy they are burning is coming mainly from their muscle tissue, not the fat stored in adipose cells.  What this means is that they have blobs of blubbery soft fat hanging off their arms, thighs and midsections.  

The answer for them, of course, is that they need to add some muscle (as was discussed in the last newsletter) to their body if they want to start moving toward the leaner, more cut look that they desire.  And they need to be doing cardio in a more efficient way. 

Long, steady-state cardio is not effective if the goal is a leaner, tighter body.  It is not effective if you strive for something more like a “swimmer’s build” or a “gymnast’s body”. It just will not work.  

The third part of the strategy that will start you toward getting you body working FOR you is doing the RIGHT kind of cardio.

When done correctly, in the Interval Training style, you will be doing MUCH LESS cardio and getting much better results in terms of fat loss at the same time. 

How is this possible?

Easy.  When you do steady-state cardio, you burn calories.  When you step off the treadmill or elliptical, you immediately STOP burning calories.  Also, a lot of the calories you burn do not come from your fat cells. 

When you do Interval Training, you do it for a shorter time but you burn more calories, and when you finish doing it you continue to burn calories for hours, sometimes even up to twenty-four hours.  In fact, done correctly, a fifteen-minute HIIT workout will burn more calories than a one-hour, steady state workout.  

PLEASE NOTE:  If you have not been exercising recently or regularly, you may not be able to work that hard at first.  If that I the case, it’s okay.  You will work up to it as you get into better and better shape.  And, as always, consult your physician before you begin a new exercise program.  

On days when you are not doing the HIIT workouts, you can add fifteen to thirty minutes of cardio. It doesn't matter whether you use a treadmill, and elliptical or run outdoors, as long as it is done as interval training. If you need to review the specifics, you can find the “cardio” sheet on my web site's downloads page. Password, again, is: metabolism (no caps). The amount of cardio you will want to do will depend on how much fat you want to lose. Some people at this point are close to their goals and just changing the nutrition will have a big enough impact. For others, there is still a lot of desired fat loss and doing cardio on as many off-days as possible may be the best choice. 
My clients, on average, lose 1-3 pounds per week during a fat-loss phase.  

As you close in on the end of summer and hopefully a new beach-ready “you”, remember to be thankful for what you have in your life and make a real and conscious effort to make improvements in those areas in which you feel you need it. So many things in life are about finding the right balance and I’m looking forward to helping you learn how to do that with your fitness goals.  

Greg Rothman, MS PT, is a fitness professional, writer and the owner of Empower Fitness in NYC.  He received his Masters Degree in Physical Therapy from Columbia University and has twenty years of experience in the fitness and rehabilitation fields.  He believes that absolutely anyone can have the body of their dreams once they understand how to eat and exercise in a way that supports their goals.  It is his mission to Empower as many people as possible to do just that.  His “Recession-Proof” Fitness Programs are an affordable way to find dramatic physical change over the course of 10 weeks.  Greg is happy to hear from you if you have questions about any topic related to fitness or nutrition, and can be found atwww.GetEmpoweredFitness.com.

#5 CERTIFICATION

A lot of people think that the trainer with the best National certification(s) is the best choice.  Nonsense.  Yes, some certifications are better than others, harder to earn, but NONE of them alone will ensure that someone is a good trainer.  Certification is a requirement and a starting point.  Nothing more. 

#4 PHYSIQUE 

Most people would prefer not to work with a trainer who is clearly out of shape, overweight, flabby, etc.  That said, the converse is not necessarily true.  Just because a trainer is buff and has low body fat does not mean that he or she can help you look like they do.  Very often people who have excellent genetics and have an easy time maintaining a great body go into the fitness field.  If you are not likewise blessed, you may be disappointed when your trainer cannot help you to look as good as he or she does.  

#3 EDUCATION

This is a slightly better criterion than the ones above.  Someone who has dedicated years of their lives to a degree in health, fitness or wellness program is more likely to be the kind of dedicated trainer you are looking for.  Advanced degrees are often an even better indicator.  There is probably a better knowledge base and dedication level in someone who has, say, a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology, than in someone who got certified by a three-day program last weekend. 

#2 CLIENT PROFILE

An even better way to choose a trainer is to watch how they interact with their clients in the gym and decide if their style would be a good match with yours.  And even more importantly, watch them with their clients for a few week or months.  Are their clients looking the same (or worse)?  If so, run the other way.  On the other hand, if you see real improvements in their clients week-to-week, there is a good chance that they might get similar results for you. 

If they have a program that you will follow, with a specific beginning, middle and end, there is an EXCELLENT chance that that can help you achieve your goals. The alternative is what you will see in 95% of trainers: GUESSING.  "Yo, dude, what do you want to work on today" or "should we do chest and triceps today? Lets start with an incline press machine" are things you NEVER want to hear from your trainer.  What you want to hear is: "Today we are switching from a strength and growth program to a high intensity interval training program.  You have added a lot of muscle and now it's time to use that metabolic advantage to strip away the fat and start to get lean.  We will be changing your nutrition program as well so that it works perfectly with your new phase of exercise".  GUESSING doesn't work. You could do that yourself.

A trainer with a program will also take notes.  Look around your gym and see how many trainers have a program into which they are writing the details of their clients workouts.  Sadly, you will not see many doing this at all.  This is another clue that you should run the other way.  That is not a trainer you want to work with.  Why?  Well, I have a decent memory, but I cannot remember exactly how many sets and reps and with what weights I did even in my last workout, much less my workout 2 weeks ago.  Multiply that by all of the clients a trainer may have and there is NO WAY that they will remember.  None. Never.  And if they don't know what you did last time, they will not know how to progress your program and you will simply not get results.  This is something that I guarantee.

If you are going to spend money, time and effort to get the best results you can when you hire a personal trainer, make sure that you are getting back what you are putting in.  

I hope that these suggestions are helpful and that you will find a trainer who is educated, compassionate, motivating and has a program that helps you to reach your fitness goals.  

If you read The Bro's Guide to 5 Gym Mistakes, hopefully you won't be making those mistakes anymore.  It is my goal to help you understand not only which exercises are BAD for you, but to help you learn which ones give you a better result.  Here are 5 MORE exercises that you should not be doing.  They are ineffective, a waste of time and sometimes downright injurious.  

"Hey Bro, I'm gonna rip up my Pecs".  Well, unlikely.  But you could very well being ripping up your shoulder joint, one of the most unstable joints in the body.  

The Pec Deck, also known as the Machine Fly, puts a ton of stress on the front of the shoulder while also shortening and tightening the muscles on the back of the shoulder.  The result can be shoulder impingement syndrome.
Not so great.  

"But I get more out of this than anything - it really hits the Pecs super-hard".

Wrong again.  A peer-reviewed study out of Truman State University has shown that the Pectoralis muscles contract 23% less of the time when doing this exercise than when test subjects did flat bench presses.  So, stop wasting your time and putting your shoulder joint at risk!!!

Hey, bro, if you're doing this exercise, I feel very, very sorry for you.  It not only LOOKS ridiculous, it IS ridiculous.  I'm not making any judgments here (well, maybe just a little), but this machine is completely useless.  Save that contraption for your next appointment with the gynecologist.  

Whether you are pressing your legs out (Hip Abduction) or in (Hip Adduction), you are wasting your time. 

There is nothing even remotely like this motion in real life.  If works primarily the stabilizers of the hip that work all day long anyway, anytime you are standing up.  It misses all of the other muscles that we actually use to move, like the Glutes, Hamstrings and Quads.  

Plus, being locked in a seated posture may cause a pulling on the spine which could result in back spasms, or worse, bulging or herniated disks.  Not good, dude.  

To work your Abductors and Adductors effectively, do these motions in standing, with a band or cable attached to your ankle.  Or even better, do lateral and cross-over lunges for a really effective workout of these muscles and the prime movers of the body and a MUCH higher metabolic effect.

I hope you have found this information helpful and that if you were doing any of these ineffective or risky exercises, this will help you to make some better choices.  I always have my eyes open at the gym and some of the dudes just insist on doing stupid things.  I'll write more about them in a future post.  

We've all seen him in the gym.  The bro-dude who walks into to the gym and right to the dumbbell stack, picks up 60s and does "biceps curls" like he's having a seizure.  He's actually targeting just about everything EXCEPT for his biceps, especially his lower back which is about to throw a disc across the gym.  

In an effort to keep more people from being THAT guy, here are 5 really, really, really stupid exercises that the bro-dude does all the time, but shouldn't.  And neither should you.  

The point of doing a strength training exercise is to strengthen and grow the muscles that you are targeting, and to do so in the most effective and safe way possible.  The following exercises fail on all counts - they do very little to actually add strength or size to the muscles and possibly put the exerciser at risk for injury, derailing any progress they might make with time off for surgery, physical therapy or just a need for rest, ice and Advil.  

BRO MISTAKE #1

The Smith Machine is one of the worst pieces of equipment ever invented.  Nonetheless, we see it all the time - there is one in just about every gym - with a line of guys ready to throw 405 pounds on and do squats that shut down the hamstrings and glutes, and put a ton of stress through the knee joint.  

Because this machine does not allow the body to move the way it naturally should, it puts a tremendous amount of shearing force through the knee which can lead to damage to the discs that work as cushions between the upper and lower bones of the leg.  In addition to stressing the knee joint, this machine does not allow the lower back to move in a natural and supportive way and can also cause back pain and disc problems. This machine moves through the same motion whether the exerciser is 5'3" or 6'4" - how could that possibly provide for a natural movement?  

SMART FIX 

Instead of this arcane device, do squats and lunges with dumbbells or a barbell.  These movements have a list of advantages over the Smith Machine.  They target all of the lower body muscles more effectively, not just the quadriceps, and strengthen supporting muscles including the abdominals.  

BRO MISTAKE #2 

"Hey bro, let me work in on that Preacher Bench.  I'm gonna rip up my biceps".  

Well, no, but you will probably rip up your shoulder joint and rotator cuff.  

The Preacher Curl is another popular exercise that you shouldn't be doing. The position of the arms with a protracted shoulder stretches the long head of the biceps (which goes into shoulder joint), so that when it quickly shortens, when you contract your biceps, it pulls on the shoulder capsule.  It is also this capsule that all of the rotator cuff muscles attach into and so it can injure these muscles as well.  Also, as the weight pulls you down and your arm pits get forced into the pad, you can impinge your Brachial Plexus, which contains all the nerves going into your arm and hand.  You'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever done this exercise and then felt tingling or lack of feeling down your arm.  

SMART FIX

Instead, do Dumbbell Biceps Curls, starting with your hands facing each other at your sides and curl up while turning the weights so they are parallel to the floor at the top of the movement.  The Biceps Brachii is not just an elbow flexor; it also supinates (turns forward) the forearms.  If you neglect this secondary role of the biceps, you are missing out on half of what the exercise can do for your biceps.  Just make sure you tighten your abdominals so your body doesn't sway, move with control and keep your elbows at your sides (they should not come forward during this motion)

SMART FIX 

Instead of wasting your time on these laughable contraptions, do exercises that work your lower body by balancing the quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings - exercises like squats, lunges, jump squats, one-legged squats, dead lifts, Romanian split squats, etc.

BRO MISTAKE # 4

Doesn't this one look great for your neck and spine?  Nonetheless, I see people doing this "old-school" exercise in the gym every single day.  

Very few people have the range of motion in the rotator cuff required to complete this exercise without risking injury.  It forces the shoulder into an unnatural alignment, allowing for impingement, tendonitis, bursitis, you name it.  

And then there is the forcing of the neck forward which can cause bulges or herniations in the cervical spine.  And when you load up too much weight, and yank the thing down without control and it bangs into one of your vertebrae, well, ouch.  Serious damage requiring surgery can occur.  

This exercise should just never be done this way.  Never.  

BRO MISTAKE # 5

The basic crunch performed on the floor is just a really bad exercise.  It doesn't work the ab muscles through the strongest part of their range of motion and it puts a lot of stress on the spine.  About the only way to make it worse is to get into a weird torture device that forces your neck into an uncomfortable position and requires you to do the crunch against a weight stack.  Stupid and ineffective.  

I hope that these tips help to make you just a little more efficient and safer in the gym.  There are a host of other popular gym exercises that you should not be doing, and I'll write about 5 more of them next week.  Stay tuned.


Time to hit the gym, bro.  

From a nutritional standpoint, we want to employ a trick called carbohydrate manipulation. I call this “protein days”, and for most people I recommend doing two to three of these each week during this phase of the program. We will continue to eat small, frequent meals as recommended in my general nutrition plan – if you don't have a copy, you can find it on my web site's download page – the password is: metabolism (no caps). But on protein days, we will eliminate starchy carbohydrates, added sugars, fruits and alcohol. Because you are eating less (roughly one-third of our calories generally come from starchy carbs), we will want to eat more proteins, vegetables and lean dairy products. Fats are okay, too, but try to choose from the list of the best fats on page two of my nutrition guide.

Sugars (and the refined starchy carbs and processed foods that your body treats as sugars) are your body's preferred source of fuel. And the arch-enemy of fat loss. When we remove these from our diet, the body must turn to it's second choice for fuel – fat.   Now, this is a two-part process: the body must first be in a place hormonally where it is releasing fat from the fat cells, which is the case when the blood-sugar is stabilized because we have been eating small, frequent and balanced meals as suggested. When this is the case, and we remove the sugars, this trick works amazingly well for burning stored fat as fuel.

So, we're creating an environment in the body where maximal fat burning is possible. Now, we need to do the right kind of exercise to burn the fat. The focus of our exercise now shifts away from building muscle by lifting progressively heavy weights and turns to the kind of exercise that gets the heart rate up, often called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.  

At Empower Fitness during this phase, I have my clients do several types of exercise over the weeks (four to six) during which fat-loss is the primary focus. We do circuits of six to ten exercises interspersed with short intervals of cardio done on a treadmill or elliptical. We also do bodyweight exercises that incorporate functional movements and plyometrics, hitting various muscle group with three to five different movements in a row.  If you don't know any good workouts of this type, I suggest using a search engine and entering “HIIT”. You will find many options. Choose a few that work for you and start doing them, varying the workout each week. 

 This is also the best time in the program to increase your cardio, but lets be clear about what that means.  

This does not mean jogging for an hour on a treadmill or using an elliptical or exercise bike at a steady pace for a long period of time.  If this is how you do your cardio, it's time to put an end to that now - it will only  set into place a mechanism by which you actually ADD fat to your body.  

A great example of this mechanism taking place can be found in the many, many, many “over-aerobicizers” that I meet.  They tell me that they do an hour of cardio most days.  They tell me that they actually weigh about what they should.  And then they tell me that they are terrified of wearing a tank top or a swimming suit. 

Why is this?

It is because they are what I call “skinny fat”.  They spend so much time doing ineffective cardio that the energy they are burning is coming mainly from their muscle tissue, not the fat stored in adipose cells.  What this means is that they have blobs of blubbery soft fat hanging off their arms, thighs and midsections. 

The answer for them, of course, is that they need to add some muscle (as was discussed in the last newsletter) to their body if they want to start moving toward the leaner, more cut look that they desire.  And they need to be doing cardio in a more efficient way. 

Long, steady-state cardio is not effective if the goal is a leaner, tighter body.  It is not effective if you strive for something more like a “swimmer’s build” or a “gymnast’s body”. It just will not work. 

The third part of the strategy that will start you toward getting you body working FOR you is doing the RIGHT kind of cardio.

When done correctly, in the Interval Training style, you will be doing MUCH LESS cardio and getting much better results in terms of fat loss at the same time.

How is this possible?

Easy.  When you do steady-state cardio, you burn calories.  When you step off the treadmill or elliptical, you immediately STOP burning calories.  Also, a lot of the calories you burn do not come from your fat cells.

When you do Interval Training, you do it for a shorter time but you burn more calories, and when you finish doing it you continue to burn calories for hours, sometimes even up to twenty-four hours.  In fact, done correctly, a fifteen-minute HIIT workout will burn more calories than a one-hour, steady state workout. 

PLEASE NOTE:  If you have not been exercising recently or regularly, you may not be able to work that hard at first.  If that I the case, it’s okay.  You will work up to it as you get into better and better shape.  And, as always, consult your physician before you begin a new exercise program.  

On days when you are not doing the HIIT workouts, you can add fifteen to thirty minutes of cardio. It doesn't matter whether you use a treadmill, and elliptical or run outdoors, as long as it is done as interval training. If you need to review the specifics, you can find the “cardio” sheet on my web site's downloads page. Password, again, is: metabolism (no caps). The amount of cardio you will want to do will depend on how much fat you want to lose. Some people at this point are close to their goals and just changing the nutrition will have a big enough impact. For others, there is still a lot of desired fat loss and doing cardio on as many off-days as possible may be the best choice.
My clients, on average, lose 1-3 pounds per week during a fat-loss phase.  

As you close in on another summer and hopefully a new beach-ready “you”, remember to be thankful for what you have in your life and make a real and conscious effort to make improvements in those areas in which you feel you need it. So many things in life are about finding the right balance and I’m looking forward to helping you learn how to do that with your fitness goals this year.

Greg Rothman, MS PT, is a fitness professional, writer and the owner of Empower Fitness in NYC.  He received his Masters Degree in Physical Therapy from Columbia University and has twenty years of experience in the fitness and rehabilitation fields.  He believes that absolutely anyone can have the body of their dreams once they understand how to eat and exercise in a way that supports their goals.  It is his mission to Empower as many people as possible to do just that.  His “Recession-Proof” Fitness Programs are an affordable way to find dramatic physical change over the course of 10 weeks.  Greg is happy to hear from you if you have questions about any topic related to fitness or nutrition, and can be found at www.GetEmpoweredFitness.com.

Spring Is Here!   With a full three months of 2014 and the official beginning of Spring behind us, fitness is on everyone’s mind. Those who didn’t give up their New Year’s resolutions have redoubled their efforts, spending more time in the gym.


If you’re one of them, you have seen the number of people in your gym dwindle by a staggering 78%. That is the number given by many psychologists for the percentage of people who have given up or failed on their resolutions by the end of March. So, if you are one of them, I guess you could say that you are in good company. If you are one of the 22% who have stuck with your plans and are moving forward toward your goals, be proud of yourselves and carry on.

Achieving your fitness goals is not easy, but it is simple. Following the right nutrition program is an essential starting point. If you missed my last article,  which addressed nutrition, please go back and read it.

For most people, a leaner, more toned body is what is desired, the coveted swimmer’s build or gymnast’s body. So, many people want to know the best toning exercises. I want to be very clear and dispel a major myth in the fitness industry here: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TONING EXERCISE. None.  Not low weights, high reps;  not "the three best exercises to tone the arms" article that was on the cover of whatever monthly magazine you read.  None.  Muscles can only grow or not grow when they are exposed to forces, like lifting weights.  They do not have a "tone" setting.  Done correctly, strength exercises will make muscles grow. In order for the body to appear leaner, more cut, we need to burn the fat that lies all around the muscle tissue. Bodies with muscle, in the absence of fat, are what we think of as “toned”.

Whether your goal is muscle building, fat loss or both, the first step should always be adding muscle by doing a strength and growth phase. Muscle is metabolically active and adding just a few pounds of muscle to your body will increase your metabolism so that more fat is burned from your body around the clock, even while you sleep. Once we add some strength and muscle to the body, the next step toward that sculpted swimmer’s or gymnast’s build is fat burning, coming up in the article that I will send out next week.  

In order to add muscle to the body in the most efficient way, there are only a few things that we have to do, but we have to do them very well. Muscle will grow only when subjected to a force (weight) at which the muscle reaches fatigue, also called Momentary Muscle Failure (MMF). So, if we are doing 12 repetitions of an exercise we should choose a weight at which we can complete 12 repetitions with good form but not 13 (or as close to that as possible).  

When a muscle reaches MMF, a process called Adaptation begins which causes the muscle to grow stronger and larger. This is similar to what happens when we go out into the sun which is at a certain strength for a certain length of time. The Melanin will cause our skin to grow darker in order to protect it from burning. It is much like this with muscle - there are signals which strengthen the muscle so that it is capable of lifting the weight to which it has been subjected.

What happens next? During the time we spend outside the gym between workouts, say 48 hours, the muscles adapt to the last workout by growing stronger and larger. If we were to come back to the gym for our next workout and lift the same weights for the same number of repetitions, no further growth would take place; the muscles are already capable of lifting at that intensity so no further adaptation would occur.  To go back to sun tan analogy, if we go outside the next day for the same amount of time, and the sun is at the same strength, our skin need not darken further.  This is where the next concept comes into play. In order to continue to grow stronger and add muscle to the body, the muscles must be subjected to a greater force (weight) each time we work out - This is called Progressive Resistance (PR).

From a conceptual standpoint, this is all we really need to know about how to gain strength and size. We just need the nuts and bolts of an exercise program to start the process. It is important to choose some of the best exercises for each part of the body, for each muscle or muscle group. This is the most efficient way to add muscle without spending hours and hours in the gym.  Choose big exercises that target multiple muscle groups like Squats, Lunges, Dead Lifts, Chest Presses, Lat Pulldowns, Rows, Overhead Presses, etc.  

The body can add muscle aggressively for 4-6 weeks for most people. We want to optimize muscle growth in this first phase of the exercise program so adding muscle is our only goal. Fat loss comes later for the reasons discussed above. If you try to add muscle and lose fat at the same time, you will not get very good results for either. The Chinese Proverb applies: ‘He who chases two rabbits catches none”.

There is one other important tool that a lot of people forget.   As we did with our nutrition, we want to track our exercise program as well. If we do not, we will never know exactly the right weights, sets and repetitions we should be doing to get the best results. So, create a simple workout sheet, bring it to the gym with you and track your numbers so that you will be able to progress from workout to workout and from week to week.  I cannot stress how important this is - not doing this is part of why so many people fail to get results in the gym.  Simple, but very true.  

If you are an experienced exerciser who gets great results in the gym, following the above tips will only improve your progress in the gym.  If you are newer to strength training or feel like you are fumbling and guessing in the gym, get in touch to learn about training with me or joining one of my 10-Week, Small-Group Programs. While getting dramatic results and moving quickly toward your fitness goals is NOT easy, I do make is very simple and doable for absolutely anybody.