For those of you who don’t know, I’m doing an hour of cardio every day for the 30 day ripped experiment. The only time I have available to do it is at 4:30 am. I have a lot of other things to do during the day to spend an hour of the afternoon doing cardio. Nevertheless, the real question that I asked myself was, why do I even exercise?

And so this question got me into thinking and reflecting, because really, why would I even exercise? Sitting on the couch, watching TV is a lot easier and more comfortable. The reasons I came up with after a while are a mixture of what I expected and what I didn’t:

• Exercising helps release stress. It’s important for me because with all the big things going on in life, these little things are very pleasurable. It’s amazing how well you can feel after a workout even if just before entering the gym you were really worried or even pissed off.
• I confess I like feeling admired. This is one of the most shocking reasons for me because I thought exercising was all about myself, but the truth is that I love been watched. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I like it. Having a nice body makes people notice you. It sort of makes me feel a little bit more powerful, like when you wear a suit and guards do not even ask for an ID when entering into institutions because you seem “more important”. It’s that sort of feeling. Power. Admiration.
• It makes my body work a lot better. When in shape, my digestive system works better. If I stop exercising for extended amounts of time, I begin to frequently get stomach aches. Of course this also has to do with eating junk food, but I’ve found out that when I exercise I tend to eat a lot healthier, even avoiding junk food altogether.

What about you?

These are the reasons I have for exercising. I would love to hear about yours. It would be nice to see which things come up more frequently and the other few guilty pleasures like mine.

Thanks,

Mario

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I will be posting updates to the experiment every three days with reports about progress, stats, pictures, and my thoughts.

Stats and initial pictures

1. Height: 1.85 m = 6.06 feet
2. Weight: 82 kg = 180.77
3. Age: 18

Here are pictures of myself I took two days ago. These will work as the frame of reference to establish if the experiment was a success.

What I’ll be doing

The initial setup for the experiment is the following:

• An hour of cardio every day in the stationary bike.
• Weight lifting three times a day doing a three-day split. I’ll be following a great routine I found on scooby’s workshop. Definitely check out the webpage. It has some great information.
• Eating approximately 180 g of protein every day, lots of veggies and fruits, and avoiding white carbohydrates.

Why am I doing this publicly?

I often begin projects only to leave them after a while. I recently read 4 Simple Principles of Getting to Completion at Zen Habits and realized doing this experiment public would help me commit to the whole 30 days. Public exposure helps me become motivated because I feel a social obligation.

Also, I would like people everywhere to see the results of the experiment so they know what can be done with exercise and correct nutrition. I’ve met many people who will do just about anything BUT exercise and nutrition. Then they wonder why they aren’t losing any weight. I hope this experiment can function as a good example.

Comments?

Please feel free to leave a comment about the experiment. Suggestions are welcome and I would be very happy to hear your thoughts about the project.

- Mario

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Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein

I went to Wal-Mart and found they had a particular brand of whey protein called Body Fortress. Never heard of it before in my life, but it was only about $15 if I can recall correctly. I thought I might just test it for a while, since $15 wasn’t a steep price to pay.

The product is named Super Advanced Whey Protein, which of course seemed to be an overstatement, being a cheap product and everything. The 2 lb bottle I bought contains 27 servings. Each serving provides you with 26 grams of protein and 130 calories.

My first impression wasn’t very good. I tried to mix it with skim milk using a spoon, but the result was too clumsy. It didn’t mix well at all, but my expectations weren’t too high for starters.

The next day I thought I would try to blend it. No clumsiness at all (I would’ve been very surprised if it didn’t mix correctly in a blender). I used the blender every day and had very nice results with it.

The whey protein tasted really good using skim milk. Reading other reviews on different websites, I’ve found out some people love the taste and others absolutely hate it. I guess you’ll have to try it to know if it’s good enough for yourself.

I think the product performed very well. My recovery time was about two days when taking it after my workout, but it surpassed the four days when I didn’t, since I’ve been lifting heavy and to failure.

I really think this product is a good alternative to the expensive options out there. You’ll have to test it to see if you actually like how it tastes, but if you do, then you’ll be saving several hundred dollars every year on whey protein.

You can buy Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein on Amazon or at your local Wal-Mart. It’s only $15 to try it and see if it’s good enough for your needs.

Wish you the best,

Mario Garza

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I haven’t used this myself because right now I’m focusing on strength training with a 5×5 program. But as soon as my strength is just where I want it to be, I’ll give this system a try.

The post covers everything you need to know about HIRT so check it out and try it!

Mario

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In this article I’ll show you 5 strategies you can use to keep yourself motivated. If you use them, you’re more likely to keep moving towards your goals of a healthy body. Keep in mind that obtaining the perfect physique is a slow process, but becoming fat happens so much faster, so whatever you do, keep going in the pursuit to attaining your goals.

1. Chart Your Progress

It’s become very easy to make charts with computer software. If you keep track of numbers such as your weight, body fat percentage, and weight you can do on different exercises, you can easily create a chart with software such as Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org. It’s very motivating to look at a graph you’ve been feeding information to for several months and watch an upward going trend. If you keep training hard, there is no way the trend will go down, so it’s sort of a vicious cycle.

2. Throw Away the Scale, Buy a Camera Instead

I know many people who weigh themselves every single day and become frustrated because they see little results. Of course they see little results if they weigh themselves every day! Your body weight is not gonna change drastically from one day to the other. Besides, your weight won’t be going down forever, since you’re gonna be building muscle, which will actually increase it.

A better strategy would be to take a picture of yourself every once in a while. Two weeks is fine, a month is actually better. Why do this? Well, a picture every month will show you exactly how your body has gotten better in that period of time. It’s hard to notice changes in your physique because you’re exposed to it every single day, but when comparing pictures, there’s no doubt, the change is obvious.

3. Get a Gym Partner

When you get a gym partner and commit to going at the same time and days, you become accountable to someone else than you. It’s easy to convince yourself to stay at home and just watch TV, but it’s a whole different story when you have to show up for someone else. The only thing you have to watch out for is that your gym partner is also committed. If not, then you’ll be getting the perfect excuse to not workout hard.

4. Healthy Competition

If your gym partner is around the same level you are, then some healthy competition is a great way to increase both your motivation and his. How can you afford to lose? You can’t. You have to show up and work your ass off at the gym, because if you stay at home and watch TV or eat junk, you can bet your ass your competition is going to be at the gym sweating to make that last repetition. And that’s the repetition that counts.

5. Reward Yourself

You worked out really hard the whole week. The weekend has arrived and you want some delicious buffalo wings. Get them. Savor them. Enjoy them. It’s your reward for doing such and amazing job before. During the week you can think about how good the reward will be. Of course, you can’t have it if you didn’t put up the work to get it

Mario

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Other benefits include an increase of your metabolic rate, gains of muscle mass, injury prevention, and stronger bones. All this because you trained your muscles to be stronger. This is the reason why I’ve investigated and tried many different exercises for building strength. I wanted to come up with the exercises that gave me the best results. This list is the result of that research so you too can enjoy the benefits of developing maximum strength.

1. Squat
   The Squat is often referred to as the king of exercises. It works a lot of different muscles like your glutes, calfs, hamstrings, and quads. But they don’t benefit only this muscles.  Since squats work such a large muscular group and need high energy levels, they induce an extra testosterone release, building even your upper body. Also, squats build functional strength, meaning if you want to increase your vertical jump or reduce your sprint time, then squats are the way to go.
2. Deadlift
   The deadlift is right up there with the squat as an exercise for maximum strength. It works a lot of different muscles from your entire body, with an emphasis on your core muscles. The core muscles are used on almost every movement you do, so deadlifting will probably make you better on the rest of your lifts. Also, the deadlift, just like the squat, builds functional strength since lifting heavy objects off the grounds is a common activity for day-to-day living.
3. Lunge
   The lunge is another fundamental exercise for building your lower body. Since the muscles there are so big and grow faster than other regions of your body, building them will provide you with a strength boost a lot faster. Also, because the muscle gains come faster, you’ll burn more fat since every pound of muscle you add will burn some extra calories every single day.
4. Pull-up
   Pull-ups will throughly work your upper body. Your back will become stronger and also wider because of the natural motion a pull-up provides. Also, your biceps, triceps, and shoulders will gain strength and size too. Cool thing about pull-ups is they also work your abs because of the stability needed to perform them.
5. Bench Press
   The bench press is an exercise that most people do in their routine and with good judgement. It obviously works your chest muscles directly, which is one of the big muscle groups. The added strength you gain because of this exercise is directly translated to your daily life because of the basic human motion the bench press is based on: pushing.
6. Barbell bent-over row
   This exercise will work the big muscles in your back like the latsimus dorsi. Your back will become wider and stronger really fast if you lift heavy weights with this exercise. Since you use your back for support on most everything you do, your posture and stability will improve as a side effect of doing this exercise.
7. Barbell Shoulder Press
   This last exercise works your shoulders and provides you with great functional strength. The need to carry things above your head comes often, and if you have weak shoulders this will quickly prove to be a challenge. The barbell shoulder press will quickly develop the strength needed for this basic movement.

This is the list I personally came up with that has given me the most strength in the least amount of time. I also concentrated that the strength I got from this exercises could be directly translated to basic human motions, because honestly, why would you want to train your body to move in ways it never naturally does? Include this exercises in your lifting routine and I can guarantee you’ll see results of increased strength in no time.

Mario

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If you’ve spent any time in a gym, you’ve probably noticed people mainly do two things to warm up: cardio and stretching.

I want to make something very clear from the beginning. Stretching is not warming up. You will probably get warmer because of the movements you do when stretching, but there’s nothing in making a muscle longer that will prepare you for weight lifting. In fact, stretching too much could lower you ability to lift heavy weights in the immediate term.

On the other hand we have cardio. This light exercise will provide a general warm-up for your body. It’ll allow your joints to lubricate naturally so they can work better when lifting. What you have to keep in mind is to not overdo cardio because that would exhaust your body. If your muscles have less energy, then they can carry less weight, thus your workout won’t be as intense as it could’ve been. 5 to 10 minutes should be enough as a general warm-up for your body.

But you aren’t finished warming up just yet. Cardio made your body warmer in general, but it hasn’t prepared the muscles you’ll use to do those heavy lifts. This is where warm-up sets come in hand.

A warm-up set is performing the exercise you’re going to do, but with less weight and less repetitions. It’s all about having your muscles practice the motions you’re about to do before incurring in the stress that heavy weights induce.

There is no exact rule for how many warm-up sets you should do before doing you actual sets, but according to The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves for Maximum Muscle by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove, a good rule of thumb is to:

Do one warm-up set for every fifty pounds of weight you want to lift in your first work set. […] As for repetitions, you want to start with roughly half the number you’ll do in that first work set, and then reduce a repetition.

Doing this will allow your muscles to be in perfect conditions to lift any heavy weight you have in mind. It’ll also reduce the probabilities of tearing up a muscle, so you can say bye to injuries.

A Practical Example

To illustrate how to apply this concept to your actual routine, let’s assume you were going to squat 200 pounds for 8 reps. Your warm-up sets would be the following:

1. 50 pounds for 4 reps.
2. 100 pounds for 3 reps.
3. 150 pounds for 2 reps.

If you reach 1 rep in a warm-up set prior to the last one, just keep doing 1-rep sets. Also, the weights used are approximates. Since an olympic bar weighs 45 pounds, you could do that first set with just the bar for example.

Remember to always warm up before doing heavy lifts. Using the strategy covered in this article will dramatically decrease your chances of injury for lifting heavy weights. It’ll also help you be more stable on your lifts, which makes you more confident on every set. Psychology is an important part of lifting, and confidence will let you train hard and lift heavy.

Mario

Picture by: scarndp

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You see, the calories you burn every day are composed by three parts:

1. Calories you burn for existing
2. Calories you burn when you digest food
3. Calories you burn for daily activities

These three things that form the calories you burn are actually what people call your metabolism. The food you eat and the exercise you do is very important for the state of your metabolism. To illustrate this, I’ll simply quote a very good book called The New Rules of Lifting: Six Basic Moves For Maximum Muscle by Lou Schuler and Alwin Cosgrove:

If you exercise more and eat more, your metabolism speeds up. If you exercise more and eat less, your metabolism could very well slow down. The combined effect of exercise and food on your metabolism is your energy flux.

Now, the real fun begins when you know that by modifying the exercise you do and the food you eat you will actually change the calories you burn when you’re resting, or the calories your burn for existing. So the true lesson here is that when you begin eating less, hoping your body will burn more fat to compensate for those lost calories, you’re doing the exact opposite! You’ll slow down your metabolism and because of that you’ll store even more fat.

You might ask why is that? Well, millions of years ago, humans didn’t have it as easy as you and I do. They had to hunt for food. A decrease in the amount of food they were getting didn’t mean they wanted to lose weight. It actually meant they had no food! And so since your body is such a perfect system, it stored fat because, well, when were you getting food again? It didn’t know. See why it doesn’t make sense to cut down your calories when trying to lose weight? Exercise + eating well is the key to success.

So What Should You Do?

1. The Simple Version
   The easiest way to approach this, although less accurate, is to eat 5 to 6 smaller meals every day consisting of clean food, which you can check out at 7 Must-Have Foods For Your Diet. The time between each meal should be of about 3 hours. Also, make sure you get some protein on every one of those meals to really satisfy your body’s need for it, which is probably more than you think.
2. The More Complicated Version
   The more complicated approach consists on measuring how many calories you’re getting for each of the macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. To do this you must first find out how many calories your body burns in one day. There are formulas you could use to do this, but I’m gonna suggest you open an account on Fit Day. There you’ll get the calories you need to burn in a day. You can also use it to keep track of the food you’re eating. You simply have to enter what you ate and the quantity, and Fit Day will calculate the calories for each macronutrient. The account has no cost, and it’s a great tool to keep track of what you eat.

   Now, the other thing you need to know is, well, how many calories of each macronutrient you have to eat. To do this I’m going to use an example. Say Fit Day shows every day you burn 2,800 calories. For protein you should get 1 gram for every pound of your body weight. So if you weigh 180 lbs, then you should be getting 180 grams of protein. Every gram of protein contains 4 calories. If we multiply the number of grams times the number of calories in each gram (180 * 4), you’ll get 720 calories. That’s the total calories you should get every day just from protein. This is a 25.7% of your daily caloric intake ( 720/2800 * 100 ).

   Now, for fat a good rule of thumb is to have it consist of 30% of your daily calories. Continuing with the example that would be  840 calories ( 2800 * 0.3 ). That’s the total number of calories you should have each day for fat. If you wanted to know how many grams that is, then divide the number of calories by 9, since each gram of fat has 9 calories.

   Finally, carbohydrates can now constitute the rest of the calories on your day. Right now we have used 55.7% of our total calories. That leaves us with 44.3% to use on carbohydrates, which would account for 1,240 calories. Every carbohydrate has 4 calories, so to know the number of grams you need divide the number of calories you need by 4.

Once you calculate all these numbers, then it is very easy to track them either by hand or by using some kind of software or web application such as Fit Day.  The complicated approach is more accurate, but personally I don’t like to count calories, so I just stick to eating often, enough, and clean. That seems to work great, since you’ll probably be approaching the numbers in the complicated approach by doing this anyway.

I hope this article was helpful to you. It’s something everyone should know. Eating less won’t keep you lean and healthy in the long run. Remember what your body thinks: less food? Gotta store more fat just in case!

Mario

Photograph by: bensonkua

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Photo by floodkoff on Flickr

Most lifters I’ve known think that by weight lifting only they would have amazing gains and look a heck of a lot better. They will probably have some results, but what they don’t know, or what they don’t care about is the other most important factor for their health: nutrition.

Now, there is something widely thought about nutrition that concerns calories. Most people think that calories are all the same, but they are most definitely not. The sources of these calories matter a lot too, but I think I’ll explain why in another article because today I want to keep it very simple. What I intend to do is list 7 foods that will definitely help you reach your fitness goals. Even if you don’t really understand the reasons for this, if you eat these foods most of the time, you will enjoy being healthy and performing at your best. So let’s get started:

1. Lean beef, pork, and poultry

This category provides your body with high quality protein made from animal muscle, which is the best protein to build human muscle. Also, because of its combination of protein and healthy fats, meat makes you stay satisfied longer, which consequently will help you eat less.

When picking which meat you’re going to buy, try to look for those labeled as lean or extra-lean. These have the lowest amounts of saturated fat and because of this they are a lot better for your general health.

2. Eggs

The quality of the protein from eggs is excellent and they have very little saturated fat. No matter what you hear, there is nothing unhealthy about the fat in eggs, since more than 40% of it is composed of monounsaturated fat.

3. Fish

Fish is great because of its high protein and healthy fat. It contains omega-3 fatty acids, which is an essential fat for your body. This means that they can’t be produced by processing other fats.

Wild fish is best, but it is also more expensive. Studies have shown that farmed fish contain more toxins than their wild counterpart. Although, it is hard to know if you are really getting wild fish, since most of the labeled ones are also raised in farms.

4. Nuts and Olive Oil

Nuts and olive oil are high in monounsaturated fat. This kind of fat is associated with benefits such as a higher metabolic level, higher testosterone level, and a lower heart-disease risk. Put some in your daily diet and enjoy the health benefits.

5. Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables will provide you with fiber and a high vitamin and mineral concentration. Different colors of fruits and vegetables contain different concentrations of vitamins and minerals, giving you several unique benefits, so try to mix up the combinations you eat.

6. Whole Grains

Whole grains have good amounts of fiber, which helps your digestive system by moving food through the digestive tract. Also, fiber acts sort of like protein in that it actually makes you feel full and satisfied longer. Stick some whole grains in your diet and feel full while saying bye to digestive problems.

7. Beans

When I say beans, I’m really talking about all the legumes. These include lentils, string beans, peas, pinto beans, and many others. They also have a high fiber content, and are associated with lower heart-disease risk, lower cholesterol, and lower risk of prostate cancer. What could be best than lowering all these health problems than by just adding food to your diet?

So there you go. Seven foods that will make you feel great and will contribute to faster and more notable results. The reason to why they work and also how much you should eat will be explained in a future article, which I will link here by updating this post. Nevertheless, if you stick to eating these foods, I’m sure you will have awesome results very fast. Combine this with a great weight lifting routine and you have the recipe for fitness success.

Mario

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Weight Lifting Mistakes - Picture: QFamily Flickr

There are some things you should never do when weight training. I’ve had to learn some of these by trial and error. There are three of these things that I’d like to tell you about and I think it’s best if you heard a story and the consequences it had.

Not so long ago, I had a party at school for the end of the term. There was music, games, and especially lots of junk food: chips, pizza, cookies, you name it. I was having a good time and since everyone was eating, I did too. Of course my body didn’t really like it because I had been eating clean most of the time before that party, but what the heck.

Since it was the last class of the day, I went home with a great meal waiting for me there. I didn’t have any because obviously I was really stuffed.

Then, some five hours later I decided to go to the gym. And here clearly is the first mistake I made. Not only did I eat tons of junk food, but I decided to go to the gym without having anything to eat for five whole hours. That’s too much time for me. All the energy that the sugar I had on the party gave me had gone away.

I coincidentally was gonna try a new routine that day. It was a big change because this routine consisted of high reps and low weight, while I was doing the exact opposite before.

I began lifting after properly warming up. I did three sets of squats, which were no problem. Then, I began supersetting, and that’s where the problem came. After the second superset, I began feeling dizzy. Everything became blurry, but I thought, “hey, no problem. I’ll just have some gatorade, chill out a bit, and get back to it”. Big mistake.

I did yet another super set and herein lies the second mistake. Don’t do more than you can. Listen to your body. If you’re too tired and begin feeling dizzy, then you’re clearly not in condition to keep going.

After doing that last super set, I felt really bad. I sat down on a bench and thought about asking for help. “No, I’ll feel better in a minute”, I thought. This was my last mistake. Always ask for help when you first think you need it. It’s not safe to wait.

After some minutes, when I clearly wasn’t feeling any better, I called Jorge, the gym coach. “Jorge, do you have any food here man?”, I said. “Uhmm no, but are you ok? Wait a minute, I’ll go get something. I’ll be right back”. Just when he went outside of the gym, I went running to the restroom and puked. That was my body’s revenge for all the junk I fed it before. I felt so bad that I just had to stay there until Jorge came back.

Now that you’ve heard my story, I’d like to discuss these mistakes.

1. Eating junk food and neglecting your nutrition. This was the source of all the other problems I had. Had I eaten correctly before, I would have had energy to complete the workout without problems, as I did later that week. It’s very simple actually. If you feed your body junk, then your body will perform like junk. Give your body quality sources of energy and it’ll perform at its best. Also, don’t go to the gym with an empty stomach. It’s always wise to have a pre-workout shake or something of that matter.

2. Doing more than you can. Don’t push your body too hard. It’s better to progress slowly and steadily than to hurt yourself because you were so stubborn that you HAD to do that extra set. Always listen to your body. If you’re not feeling okay, it’s better for you to call it a day than to risk getting injured or worse.

3. Not wanting to ask for help. If you’re already on a tough situation, then do not hesitate to call for help. It really could make the difference between an “it was close” moment and an “I wish I had asked for help” moment.

I hope you can learn from this experience I had and avoid making these mistakes. You’ll have a much better time if you do. Life is always about choices. It’s almost always the easy path vs the hard path, and often the easy path leads to problems. Make the right decision even though you might have to work a little harder. It’s worth it in the long run.

Mario

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