A fitness pet-peeve myth of mine:
THE “HIGH REPETITIONS MAKE YOU LEAN MYTH
This is see in its worst manifestation in women ,usually, at to the gym who are routinely seen doing sets with 20-30+ rep(etitions)s pushing preposterously low weights – like don’t leg press less than your own body weight. What is walking too hard? (I sometimes see guys doing 15ish reps). When I’ve talked to friends who do this they always say something about how they don’t want to get all big and muscle-bound so their high rep method will just give them tone.

This is totally wrong.

Muscles grow when they are stressed and pushed past their limits – when you “make” your body meet the stressful demands you place on it. You certainly can’t do this without breaking a sweat. You should be doing sets between 5-10 reps more or less. Feel the strain of Atlas. No girl is going to get hulky by accident with weights. Nobody will. Building muscle is hard. Do not fight it. It is only good for you. Furthermore, the more muscle you have the more calories your better body burns at idle.

Fat disappears when the sugars/carbs energy in the blood and muscles is depleted and the reserves get tapped. When you cut your fat% (it is a total body thing) and there is an adequate amount of muscles that is no longer obscured by fat you look toned. That’s it. So when anybody does high-rep exercises they are mainly wasting their time because the whole point is to get the muscle thoroughly wrecked. And I love the gym but I do not want to lollygag there without affect.

The only good reason (usually) to use low weights is when you are doing burn-out sets which are when whenever you can’t do another rep of the weight you have set you lower the weight, continue lifting until inability, lowering again, lifting again, lowering, lifting, etc., etc., finally finishing utterly spent. These are very efficient with one’s gym time since a single set can be enough.

A previous post about exercise is here.

[BODY://minerals=structure : protein=strength: carbs=fastenergy/crystal: fats=slowenergy/oils]

But all of us, whether we train in martial arts or not, do battle daily with some of our worst enemies: depletion of energy, ageing, illness, aches and pains, lack of direction, lack of concentration, stubbornness, laziness, and other ailments and negative proclivities of the human condition. Against these enemies, MMAs can’t hold a candle to TMAs—particularly the internal martial arts. Anyone who doesn’t believe this should watch the movies Requiem for a Heavyweight or The Wrestler. Both are realistic portrayals of the toll that ring combat sports take on the human body and spirit. Or, if you need real-life examples, think of Muhammad Ali, whose Parkinson’s Disease was probably caused by too many blows to the head or Mickey Rourke, star of The Wrestler, disfigured and also the recipient of too many head strikes, forcing him to retire from the ring and return to acting (thank goodness!). Then afterward, watch any YouTube video of traditional martial arts masters in their seventies and eighties who move as if they are decades younger than their calendar ages. To put it another way, the “broken-down pug” is a well-known stereotype for a reason, but how may of us have an image of the “broken-down karateka,” or, even more ludicrous, “the broken-down tai chi chuanist?”

This guy (Morihei Ueshiba – founder of Aikido) is 85!

Here is a video with him using bokken and jo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27obVRzIPc

Martial artists all have a dual identity, not unlike Superman and Clark Kent. Having to go to work or school and trying to find the time to “fit” training in our day is quite the challenge. Why do we have to spend the majority of time on Clark Kent type issues? Unfortunately for us Clark Kent usually pays the bills… My advice is if you cant find the time to train, make an adjustment in your life so that you’re not so consumed with work that you’re too tired to train.

On diligence:

I have found that it is true that there is no such thing as an ineffective technique, their are only techniques trained ineffectively. However in order to apply certain techniques in a real combat scenario will take a great deal more of effort to perfect. My teacher told me that once you have done a technique a thousand times you have learned it, after ten thousand times it is effective, 100,000 it becomes powerful and one million times it is flawless. How many techniques have you practiced a million times? It is the reason hand techniques seem more effective at first. I can finish a million hand techniques in a year if I work at it consistently. A technique like a spin kick however will take a great deal more time to perfect. This is the only route however of having a technique effective enough to use during a real altercation.

http://warriorfox.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

If you are going to bother to spend your time at the gym, you are more or less investing effort in your body. Getting good results is just being efficient with your time. Here is what I do.

LIFTING
Lift Heavy. Lift weight that challenges you to do it between 4-8 times. If you do less than 6, consider lowering the weight next set. If you do more than 10, increase the weight.
I see plenty of people (particularly girls) who lift paltry weights for 30 reps or so. That does nothing. The whole point is to challenge and over-burden your muscles so they decide to man up and reroute your body’s resources so they’ll be able to handle the strain better next time. If the weight you are lifting isn’t hard to lift, you aren’t lifting enough.

I have a 3 day routine.
1 – Upper Body – Chest/Back/Shoulders/Arms
2 – Lower Body – Legs/Abs/Core
3 – Cardio/Off
While at the gym I bounce between 2 or 3 exercises at a time, meaning that I do a set on one machine/muscle and then a set on another machine/muscle, then maybe another set on another machine/muscle, and then repeat until I’ve done 3 sets. Then I do other exercises. The consequences of this method I think are three-fold. First, because I’m essentially always working and not just sitting for a couple minutes between sets, I keep my heartrate high and am essentially doing low-level cardio. Second, because I give my muscles a bit more of a break between sets I tend to be able to lift more. Third, I get a lot more sets into an hour at a gym than others.

Doing big exercises that integrate a lot of muscles is better than isolating small muscles. For example, I do very little work on my arms because all the chest/back exercises already work the triceps and biceps. I only work those muscles at the very end of the session.

Your last set on a muscle can be a burn-out set, meaning that you keep doing reps until failure, and as your muscles fail, you lower the weight so that you can do more. Eventually you’ll be able to lift nothing.

Also, stretch! Stretch frequently during the day, before working out and after. It’ll make you less tense in general and prevents injury. If you don’t know good stretches take a couple of yoga classes until you learn some. I generally think yoga is too low intensity to do very often. The harder kinds, like Bikram, are pretty effective however. I think yoga is best as a stretching method, not as a muscle toning method as it is often taught (that works for girls, but boys need to move heavy things to get strong).

CARDIO
I do not do cardio as much as I might in the gym, but get a lot of its benefit from going out dancing.
I feel like there are two key points people should consider re cardio.
1 – Before your body starts burning your fat it burns the glycogen in your muscles. So if you want to burn fat you need to deplete your glycogen first, at least the glycogen in your liver (which is about 100g/400cal – your muscles hold 250-400g/1000-1600cals)
I think the best way to achieve this is to do cardio first thing in the morning before you have eaten. Definitely do it on an empty stomach or you’ll just be burning your food which is a waste of time. Different supplements can help burn fat and keep muscle while you do this.
2 – You want to make sure you are doing cardio in the right range of intensity. If you go to hard and high, your body stops its aerobic processes (which burn carbs/fat) to anaerobic ones which will burn muscle. Ergo, work out at the right range of intensity – online calculators can tell you the right heart range like this one – http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/l/bl_THR.htm. I tend to do cardio for about an hour, setting the level real high, which generally keeps me near the bottom of my target heart range for the beginning which slowly rises to the target max by the end.

EATING
The big dilemma with eating is how to eat enough to build muscles while not eating enough that you put on any fat. Essentially these goals are in divergent directions and I have spent plenty of time trying to figure out how to do both at once.

I think the ideal number of calories to have in a day vaguely equals your BMR (basal metabolic rate) + any and all calorie burning activities + extra protein leftover from that equation to build your muscles.

A simple way to think of the food you eat is that protein is the building blocks, carbs are active energy and fat is stored fuel.

If you are trying to build muscle the most important thing you need is protein, as its component part. Many people think the optimum protein intake is something like 2 grams of protein for every kilogram of your weight and 25-40g of protein should be taken every 3-4 hours. Effectively if you just try to get 150-200 grams of protein a day, you are getting 3-4x the standard, which should be plenty.

Just as you should be spacing out your protein you should be spacing out your meals to be more frequent and smaller. This is because if you aren’t frequently eating your body can get stingy with its protein and won’t bother to build up your muscles (since they are more energy expensive than fat to maintain). Additionally, by having more smaller meals (like 75g/300 cals of carbs limit per meal), in terms of each individual meal you will not have enough excess calories for your body to store them as fat, which it will do once your “tank” is “topped off”.

Also, post lifting you should try to get a good dose of protein as quickly as possible as your body will focus it towards muscle repair at that time. Also make sure you get enough carbs and other calories to replenish your depleted glycogen post workout so your protein doesn’t just get wasted as fuel.

As it is hard to eat sufficient protein without lots of powder (which gets old) or lots of quality meat (which gets real expensive), some other good food options are protein bread, edamane soybeans, turkey chili and other turkey meat, buckwheat noodles, and good ol’ pasta. Another nice option is blending up protein powder with almond milk, bananas and frozen berries.

SUPPLEMENTS
When you buy protein try to calculate how many grams of protein you are getting per $. Lots of companies make different size containers with different serving sizes, etc. You’ll be taking a lot of this so do the math to get a good deal. I get most of mind from the Vitamin Shoppe because their store-brand seems the best bargain. I usually take Whey protein because it is cheap but soy is good to mix with soups, and there is also rice protein, casein, and even hemp protein (which is kinda gritty).

I presently take plenty of glutamine and creatine which are proven to have big effects in terms of replenishing muscle energy and maximizing your output. They really do work.

They sell tons of other amino acids and various supplements but I do not think the expense justifies the marginal results.

I also take various “male” supplements which essentially boost your testosterone, which helps you build muscle and maintain it. These supplements are often sold for libido purposes as well. They come as individual components like Yohimbe, Tribulus terrestris, Tongkat Ali, etc., or combined together which is often more convenient. I have found one consequence of their ingestion is that little things (like dropping something) can easily spark off a burning fury. I don’t know that that is a bad thing, but my standard rage levels have definitely increased.

Energy supplements like Jacked or NO-Explode definitely do work to get you amped but aren’t necessary. For the record NO-Explode is like work-out meth (a bit twitchy) while Jacked is better and feels cleaner. I’ve even just taken them before going out for a boost.

In terms of fat burning supplements I would recommend Coleus Forskohlii. Take it on a empty stomach. http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/jalali/forskolin.htm / http://fat-burners.realsolutionsmag.com/fat-burner-Coleus-Forskohlii.html

& that’s how I work out. Everybody has their own way and the only thing that matters is results.