As you go about your fat burning workouts, it’s going to be very important that you’re being mindful not to make some of the key mistakes that could really cost you in your results.  Unfortunately, many people are not performing weight loss workouts correctly, so they waste needless weeks, if not months, without seeing progress.

Let’s go over the top ten workout mistakes that are often made while doing your program so you can get a grasp over what not to do.

Too Much Volume

The very first mistake that’s often made is doing way too much volume.  Remember, the more volume you include in your workout, the longer it’s going to take you to recover. Usually 6-8 sets for the big muscle groups and another 3-4 sets for the smaller muscle groups will be plenty to round out your routine.

Lack Of Rest Period Awareness

Second, the next problem is the lack of awareness over how long you’re resting.  Remember that the rest you take is a key element in success so you’ll want to get specific about how long you are taking to rest.

Avoid resting longer than 3 minutes but still make sure that you are recovered before moving forward.

No Post-Workout Nutrition

Post workout nutrition is going to be ideal regardless of what your goal is. At this time the body is primed and ready to uptake those nutrients so be certain you don’t deprive it of them.  Carbohydrates and protein will be ideal here so get those in immediately after you leave the gym.

Not Enough Variety

Moving on, another big problem in many people’s weight loss workouts is not enough variety. Not only is having enough variety going to be important to prevent you from becoming bored but it’s also vital to keep challenging the muscle fibers.

If you go into the gym and perform the same exercises over and over and over again, the body will quickly adapt and progress will slow.  Avoid this at all costs.

Not Enough Resistance

Moving on, always be sure that you’re adding enough resistance as well.  Challenge those muscles – you’re stronger than you think. If you aren’t lifting enough weight, you won’t see maximum progress.

Failure To Utilize Various Rep Ranges

Another key element in your workout program is that you must use a variety of different rep ranges.  This is going to ensure that your muscles get worked across a broad spectrum and that you continually see progress.

Don’t be afraid to lift in the lower rep range of 5-6 reps if you’re lifting heavier weight. Likewise, move up into the 10-12 rep range at some points to ramp your metabolism up there and improve muscle definition.

Poor Focus

Maintaining a high degree of focus will also be vital as you go about your workouts.  This will help you concentrate on the task on hand and prevent you from losing interest in your workout.  Those who are more focused will always workout with a higher overall intensity.

Lack Of Direction

Not having proper direction in your workouts is a big problem.  Always be sure that you clearly know what you’ll be doing each time you enter the gym so you don’t waste time figuring it out while you’re doing the workout session.

No Tracking

Next, along with having direction, you should also be tracking your workouts.  This will keep you accountable to what you’re doing and also help ensure that you progress along.

No Specific Goals

Finally, the last thing you should do for effective workouts is be sure to set specific goals. This way, you know exactly what you’re working towards and when you’ve accomplished it.

So there you have all the main things you need to know to avoid.  If you make any one of these workout mistakes it really could cost you in your overall progress.

Do you have any other ideas that you’d like to share?

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways to Avoid Hitting a Workout Plateau
2. Core Workout For Beginners
3. Muscle Building Workout

One exercise that many people often forget about adding to their circuit training workout routine but one that will yield quite positive results is the push-up.

Push-ups are ideal for anyone who wants to be doing their workouts in the comfort of their own homes since you require no equipment to do it and don’t even need to add weight to advance it.  There are plenty of push-up variations that can be done to challenge your muscles more and even work the abdominal core to a very large extent.

Because of this, if you combine push-ups will pull-ups for an upper body workout, you’ll literally target pretty much every muscle in the entire upper body.

Designing a circuit training workout that utilizes just push-ups and pull-ups isn’t that difficult either.  There are many different ways you can set it up and can be based on what your primary goal set is.

If you’re looking to burn fat, you’ll want to do the exercises back to back in a superset fashion to boost your overall calorie burn and really get the body’s metabolic rate up higher while if you want to build strength, you’ll be looking to do some of the more advanced variations and take your time between sets so that you can fully recover and give 100% full effort in the next set you do.

Let’s look at a sample push-up workout to get you started.

The Design

For the design of this workout in particular you’re going to perform one exercise for one minute straight.  Your goal is to perform as many reps, using proper form, as you can until that minute is up.  If you find yourself growing tired halfway through, the minute, stop and rest for however long you feel you need to.  Then pick up again and continue on until the minute is complete.

Don’t be too alarmed if at first you find that you’re hardly getting close to that one minute mark.  Doing one minute straight of either push-ups or pull-ups is a very difficult thing and it’s going to take some practice and hard work to get right.

Here’s your sample workout.

Knee Push-Ups
Wide Grip Pull-Ups

Rest

Standard Push-Ups
Regular Grip Pull-Ups

Rest

Triangle Push-Ups
Close-Grip Pull-Ups

Rest

Staggared Push-Ups
Reverse Grip Pull-Ups

Once you can comfortably make it through this workout once, you’ll want to either consider adding some more advanced variations to the mix or cycle through it a second time to push those muscles even harder.

Do you have any push-up variations that you add to your workout that you’d like to share?

Related posts:

1. 15 Minute Circuit Workout
2. How to Do 100 Push Ups
3. How To Workout With Bodyweight

One of the most important aspects to get down of your weight loss workouts is the element that’s going to train your core. Having a good core workout in place for beginners is going to help build the strong foundation that the rest of the exercises you perform are based on.

If you’re weak in your core you’re going to feel it each and every time you do another lift such as a squat, bench press, or a deadlift.  You won’t be able to lift as much weight therefore won’t see the progress that you could be making.

But how do you go about designing a core workout for beginners? And once it is designed, what’s the best way to integrate it into your weight loss workouts?  Let’s take a quick look at these two factors so you can get off to the right start.

The Best Core Exercises

When it comes to selecting core exercises to add to these sessions, first you’ll want to just focus on making sure you understand what proper muscular contraction feels like.  Avoiding doing any fancy exercises right off the top because chances are you’ll just use wrong form and then develop habits that just aren’t going to be conducive to good results.

Try flat sit-ups on the floor, lying leg raises, and start in on a plank exercise with the knees on the floor.  This is one of the best ones for targeting the entire core region so one you won’t want to skip over.

Adding Them To Your Workouts

Now, once you have your three or four exercises selected out, you’ll want to add them into your weight loss workouts.  To do this you should aim to complete them towards the end of the workout, right before you perform your cool-down.

The problem with doing them right at the start is that you’ll then pre-fatigue those ab muscles, so they won’t be as strong when you move towards your major lifts.  This then puts you at a big disadvantage and will quickly hinder how fast you’re able to progress with your main workout sessions.

Instead, do them at the end, two or three times per week after your lower or upper body weight lifting has been completed.

Progressing Your Core Workouts

Finally, when it comes to progressing your core workouts along, always aim to reduce your base of support.  This means moving your exercises onto an exercise ball or a bosu ball which is going to throw off your balance and get those muscle fibers contracting that much harder.

If you like you can also add more weight to the exercise as well (using weighted plates) however do be aware that this may actually cause the muscles in the abs to grow larger.  Some people will want this while others wont.  Knowing it could happen will help you make the right decision for you.

So there you have everything you need to know about your core workout for beginners.

Do you have any exercises that you’d like to share?

Related posts:

1. Fat Burning Exercises For Beginners
2. Strength Training Circuit Workout
3. Bosu Ball Ab Exercises To Challenge Your Core

Here’s the finale to our 3-part “train like a pro” interview with tennis pro, Jeff Salzenstein.

Enjoy and be sure to check out Jeff’s site at www.JeffSalzenstein.com .

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Yuri: That’s great. Just a couple more questions here. Looking at the competitive season for tennis—obviously, there’s four major slams and a bunch of, you know, smaller tournaments throughout—what does, what do most players do? I mean, if they’re competing, I guess, in the smaller tournaments, they’re playing, you know, in most cases, every day sometimes and in the slams every day, every other day.

How do they work in their training schedule around that? Are they still training in the gym, doing stuff before their games, on the off days? How does all that work? And maybe comparing that to the off season as well.

Jeff: Yeah, that is the art, that’s the science; it’s all wrapped into one. I mean, there’s no easy answer to that. I mean, tennis players are playing twelve months out of the year. I think it’s pretty funny that, you know, the season ends maybe mid-November, November 1, they take a few weeks off, and they have this off season, it’s like six weeks, to get ready for Australia.

There’s really not much of a break, like in other sports, to really build up your reserves and get a lot stronger. So, I’ve kind of adopted the approach or believe it’s more of a kind of a grease-to-groove theory.

There is a strength coach out there named Pavel, who talks a lot about that; you do a little bit every day instead of really organizing a periodization schedule.

Now, Roger Federer, he’s number one in the world—number two now, actually—Rafa Nadal, number one. These guys can afford to take segmented breaks where their trainers can really organize their schedule, but if you’re a hundred in the world or two hundred in the world and you’re trying to survive out there, you really have to keep training throughout the year, and you have to be smart about it.

So, on days that you play matches, you know, you might do a few corrective exercises. And then as soon as you lose in that tournament, if you know you have seven days off, that’s when you might need to hit the gym hard for a couple days. Maybe you need to get to the track, depending on how you feel.

But there’s a huge challenge of overtraining because you’re always having to work on your skills and playing matches. So, I’ve felt that you really need to focus on injury prevention, keeping the body balanced, keeping the tissue soft—you know, the massages and the foam roller and all the things that can open up the body—stretching, when I talked about static stretching.

I believe, again, you should only hold a stretch for two seconds and then you release and then you move into the stretch again, so you’re always keeping the body moving. But I think just a consistent daily dose—it could be two minutes, it could be ten minutes, it could be a half hour some days—of just opening up the body, doing your corrective exercises, and focusing on recovery and nutrition.

And then if you can get some maximal strength work in when you’re not playing matches, when you’re recovering a little bit, then you wanna hit that. If you can get some intervals and get to the track or do some burpees or do something in a confined space where you can get your heart rate elevated to burn fat and to get stronger, by all means, you need to do that. But just changing the approach to more of injury prevention, diet, nutrition, recovery, I think that needs to be the foundation first.

So the concept of really focusing on injury prevention, rest and recovery, and nutrition instead of, you know, running yourself into the ground if you’re a pro tennis player because you’re just, you’re playing and you’re practicing so much that it’s really hard to top that off, like going to the track and killing yourself out there, so you’ve gotta be really smart about your training and when you do it.

Pick your off times to get your interval training in and get your strength work in. But with maximal strength, for example, I mean, I like to keep the reps really low. I saw one top woman tennis player at the U.S. Open one year. She had her trainer with her and she was on a physio ball and she was doing kind of dumbbell press exercises, like eight pounds on each side and I’m thinking to myself, Okay, this is a pro athlete, and she’s lifting sixteen total pounds off a physio ball.

I’m trying to think what’s the carryover for her to help build her forehand or serve. There isn’t any. I mean, she should be busting out maybe push-ups with a weight vest on, you know, something like that, to be able to build up to that level.

I think there is a shift moving in that direction, but there’s still more, too many, I think too many athletes still doing, you know, your machines and your dumbbells and your sets of, you know, three sets of fifteen because somebody told you to do three sets of fifteen.

I think it should be more of an intuitive approach about what you feel. And, certainly, if you’re interested in finding a trainer for your own improvement and your skill development, you wanna look for someone that has that approach, rather than that, again, that machine approach, the long, slow cardio approach, the three sets of fifteen approach.

Everybody is different, everybody has a different way of doing things, but the more organic, holistic approach is the way that sport is moving.

Yuri: Yeah, totally, couldn’t agree more. And along those lines, what lessons can you impart with people from the world of pro tennis to training for fat loss, just getting fit, building a bit of strength? What kinda lessons can anyone take from what you went through with some of the pro athletes or are doing?

Jeff: I think it’s a great concept that, you know, again, a lot of people are trying to make all of this really complicated, and what we can learn from these pro athletes, number one is consistency. I mean, they have a goal, they’re focused on achieving a certain ranking or winning a certain tournament or whatever it is; they have a specific tangible goal.

And so, if you have a goal to lose fat or to build muscle or strength, you gotta start there; you gotta have that goal, you gotta have that mind-set. And these guys just show up and these girls show up every day. There’s a consistency to it, so every day you wanna do something that moves you closer to your goal instead of away from your goal.

And just having a clear plan on, ‘Okay, what exercises am I gonna do? What am I gonna eat?’ And just increasing overall awareness.

I think just, you know, are you gonna grab that cupcake or are you gonna grab the oatmeal raisin cookie when, you know, maybe you don’t need that or are you gonna eat more vegetables? I mean, just simple, basic guidelines of, you know, high-quality protein, good fats, increase your vegetable intake.

As far as the training goes, two to three times a week of, you know, interval training, tobadas, where you go twenty seconds on and then ten seconds off. If you can’t do that yet, start with twenty seconds on and then maybe thirty or forty seconds off, and you do a series of six or eight reps of that and then you do that two or three days later, but just a consistent program where you’re working on your strength levels and your endurance with the intervals a couple times a week, and then you’re just aware of what fuel you’re putting in your body.

And that’s what these pro athletes are doing; it’s just consistency day in and day out. And they also have a team supporting them usually around; you know, coaches, if it’s a girlfriend or wife, somebody is there supporting them maybe when they have their down moments.

So, if you’re wanting to achieve a certain goal by losing fat or building strength or muscle, it’s important to surround yourself with likeminded people that are going after the same goals.

Yuri: Awesome. That was some great pieces of advice. Well, it’s been a very insightful and informative interview so far. Just before we end, what’s the best place for people to get a hold of you, Jeff, and follow some of the stuff that you’re doing?

Jeff: Yeah, I started a blog, and we’re actually in the process of creating an instructional tennis DVD because we find that there’s just a lot of misinformation out there, so we have a lot of cool project in the work. You can go to JeffSalzenstein.com.

It’s a tennis Web site, but there’s a huge spin on health and nutrition and really with optimal performance. So, even if you’re not a tennis player, we’re gonna be providing great information there, you know, lots of content that can help you improve your tennis and your life. Certainly, if you’re tennis fan, we would like you to check it out, but that’s the best place to find us.

Yuri: Awesome, buddy. Well, that’s great. We’ll definitely make sure people get there and follow your stuff ’cause you’re definitely doing some great stuff. Yeah, anything else you wanna finish with before we end our interview today?

Jeff: No, Yuri, I actually just wanna thank you for having me on this call. It was awesome to be able to talk to you, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you’re doing and how you’re helping people and I learn a ton from you too, so thanks again for having me.

Yuri: Definitely, definitely, anytime. All right, well, on that note, again, thanks, Jeff, and thanks everyone who’s listening to this or reading this interview, and remember, guys, check out Jeff Salzenstein’s blog and, in the meantime, we’ll speak to you later. Thanks again, talk to you soon.

Related posts:

1. Train Like a Pro – Interview with Tennis Pro, Jeff Salzenstein
2. Train Like a Pro (Part 2) with Jeff Salzenstein
3. “Ask Yuri” Episode #1 – Abs – When to Train Them?

If you’re been reading up on the various fat burning workouts that can be done, there’s no question that you’ve likely come across the Crossfit workout plan.  More and more people are starting to grow very interested in what this plan has to offer and those who do decide to try it out, experience very good results because of it.

They usually find they get lean quickly and start noticing significant improvements in their overall shape and fitness level.  Let’s have a quick look at what crossfit is all about so that you can quickly learn exactly whether this is the right program for you.

Unlimited Options

The very first reason why so many people choose to use this workout program to help them burn fat is because there are just so many different options that you can do with it.  If you’re someone who typically gets quite bored with your standard workout program, you’ll love the variety that Crossfit workouts introduce.

What’s more is that since the body requires that variety to keep progressing along, it’s going to mean that you see that much better results because of it.

Cardiovascular and Strength Conditioning

Second, another very nice reason to try Crossfit Workouts on a regular basis is because they are going to target all aspects of your fitness training.

While with traditional workout programs you may have to do one cardio workout and then hit the gym again for your strength based workout, with Crossfit you’ll work both at the exact same time.

Since many people are so busy in their lives this really proves to be an advantage to them and one of the main reasons they find they stick with the program.  The time commitment from you is going to be quite minimal but this doesn’t have to mean you sacrifice your results.

Applicable To Many Different Skill Levels

Finally, the last reason why you should try out Crossfit is because it’s not just for the highly advanced.  Some people may think that you have to be in great shape to do the Crossfit workout but this just isn’t the case.

Crossfit is designed so that anyone of any age, fitness level, or condition can perform the workouts and progress them at their own comfort level.

So whether you’re someone who’s already been working out for years or you’re brand new to the game and slightly older, Crossfit workouts can definitely still help.

If you’re looking for a new workout program to try out, this is definitely one that you should give some consideration to. It will help you crank that fitness level up a notch and experience full body conditioning benefits like you’ve never seen before.

Related posts:

1. CrossFit Workout Routine That Nearly Killed Me!
2. Crossfit and Interval Training Workout Recap
3. Crossfit Workout or Just a Good Butt Kicking?

One exercise that so many people really struggle with during their program are pull-ups.  Pull-ups are one of the best bodyweight exercises to perform since they will challenge the back muscles as well as those in the arms.  They’re also easy to execute when you do have the strength and can be performed anywhere you’re able to find an overhead bar of some sort.

Pull-ups are one of the most common bodyweight exercises also performed any time you’re going to be doing fitness testing as well, making them an extremely common movement to include in any sort of physical prep work that you may be doing.

But, what do you do if you can’t quite do a pull-up? Let’s have a look at your options.

Get Assistance

The very first thing that you can do if you’re really struggling to perform pull-ups is to get assistance.  For this you’ll simply have someone stand directly underneath you and gently push you upwards towards the bar by holding onto your legs and using that to propel you upwards.

This is nice since then they can change the overall degree of force they’re using as they do this, moving you that much closer and closer to eventually just doing it on your own entirely.

Perform Inverted Pull-Ups

Second, the next way that you can work your way up to performing this one of the bodyweight exercises is by doing inverted pull-ups instead.  With this you’ll place a bar across to chairs and then place the hands up on the bar from there with the body directly underneath it.

Once you’re comfortable, then you can slowly begin to pull yourself up to the bar, aiming to get the chest fully touching the bar.  Lower back down once its completed.

Add Additional Back Strengthen Exercises To Your Workout Plan

Finally, the last thing that you should consider doing if you really can’t perform a pull-up is to add some back strengthening exercises to the workout instead.  This way you can develop the muscles that are involved with performing the pull-up so that once you do gain a bit more strength, you’ll have no trouble executing the lift.

So there you have some of the best quick tips that you should utilize in order to perform a pull-up if you’re currently struggling. If you do make sure that you keep working at it, it should only be a matter of time before you’re fully able to do this highly effective bodyweight exercise.

Related posts:

1. Exercises To Help You Get In Shape
2. How To Workout With Bodyweight
3. Prevent Knee Pain with These 4 Leg Exercises

If you’re looking to capture the look of your favorite athlete, it helps to understand fully what athletic workouts are all about and how you can go incorporating some of the same principles into your own training.

Those who never vary up their workouts nor learn what type of training athletes use will never be able to get that lean, defined, and quick performance ability like their favorite sport player.  Fortunately though, with a few small adjustments to your program you should have no problem improving your results and getting closer to where you want to be.

Let’s have a brief look at a few things you should know to build muscle like an athlete.

Utilize Quick, Sharp Movements

The very first thing that you’ll want to be sure that you do is perform quick, sharp movements in any form of resistance training you do.  So rather than using a constant speed throughout your lift for example, you’d move through the first portion very rapidly and then back off and keep it slower and steady through the next.

Think of using a tempo closer to 1:2:3.  This means you’d take one second to perform the first part of the exercise, take a two second pause at the top of the movement, and then take 3 seconds to bring the weight back to the start again.

Perform Interval Cardio Training

Second, the next must do for your athletic workouts is to add some interval training to the mix.  Intervals are actually a great form of cardio that can help to build up muscle, therefore making you look much more like your favorite athlete.

Try and perform 30 seconds at an all-out pace and then follow that up with 60 seconds at a more moderate speed to rest.  Repeat this 6-10 times to complete the athletic workouts.

Think Full Body-Agility Based Training

Finally, when it comes to the actual exercise selection to add to your athletic workouts, always think big, full body movements.

Most athletes are going to perform exercises that transfer over to their sport the best and this means doing exercises that work multiple muscle groups at once.  Think squats, lunges, deadlifts, and push-ups.  Then add some agility training to this by using an exercise ball to help you complete the movement and you’ll be all set.

By throwing yourself off balance like this you’ll help to recruit the core better, which is what will then give you that full-body strength level that you’re looking for.

So keep these tips if you want to start training like an athlete.  The more of them you can use, the better overall performance you’re going to see.

Related posts:

1. Muscle Building For Athletes
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3. Why You Should Train Like an Athlete

Hope you enjoyed PART 1 of my interview with tennis pro, Jeff Salzenstein.

Here’s the continuation of the interview…

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Yuri: So, that’d be for the warm-up. Now, for a typical workout that you might put a player through nowadays, what would that look like?

Jeff: Yeah, certainly, I like to look at, you know, can an athlete do a basic single-leg squat. There’re certain form requirements but, literally, I’ll have a tennis player sit on a bench and perform a single-leg squat.

And most of the kids that I work with can do that, but if they can and they have good form, then we can increase the loads either using resistance bands or some type of a weight. We put them in deep-lunge position—we call it an iso-extreme lunge—and see how long they can hold that position.

So, I’m a big believer, again, in the body weight being able to hold plank-type positions, using resistance bands to challenge your core, and most of the time people ask me—you know, I had one of the bigger serves on the tour when I played, and, certainly, technique plays a huge role, but I can serve faster than a junior tennis player because I’m a lot stronger in my legs, in my core, and so we also focus a lot on corrective exercises.

We wanna make sure that the glute muscles are activated, we wanna make sure the feet are really strong, so we do different exercises for the feet. I mean, there’s a whole host of things we can do that might be considered somewhat out-of-the-box, but that’s the way that sport and athletic performance is moving.

You’ve gotta have strong feet, you’ve gotta have a strong core, your hips have to be aligned; so, there’s a whole series of exercises that you can do that seem very basic, but instead of going out and, you know, putting two hundred pounds on your back and doing a squat or doing a leg-extension machine, if you master these core-type corrective exercises, not only are you gonna prevent injuries, but your body’s gonna be more aligned, and you’re gonna feel more efficient on the tennis court.

Yuri: Totally. And what about some tips for recovery or regeneration?

Jeff: Well, certainly, a lot of the American athletes, actually—Andy Roddick is somewhat known for this—when they have these tough matches, they actually jump in the ice bath, so for those of you who are brave out there, try an ice bath after a tough match.

I mean, you get the soreness out of your body, and you can recover the next day a lot faster when you just shock your system with that cold temperature, the ice bath. A hot-cold contrast shower or you go thirty seconds on, thirty seconds off with a really hot shower and then as cold as you can handle it, again, you’re getting, you know, the old blood, stagnant blood out of the body, and you’re getting new blood in there.

Certainly, diet is huge. I mean, in the first thirty minutes after you finish competing or you finish practicing, you wanna get great nutrition into your body, and that would be a high-quality protein source, that would be fruit and vegetables. You wanna look for healthy food bars.

As far as the protein goes, sometimes you can’t eat—if you are a meat eater—you can’t eat chicken or beef right after you play, but if you get a protein shake—it could be a rice protein or a whey protein, that sorta stuff. It’s just that first thirty-minute window is just so crucial for incredible recovery, and a lot of times, I’ll see athletes, you know, they’re either drinking the soda pop or they’ll have Doritos.

Literally, I’ll see them bringing it for after practice, and I look at ’em and I’ll just say, ‘Okay, well, there’s not a lot of preparation going on there,’ and they really need to take a hard look. They might be able to get away with it when they’re young, but when you’re older you’re not gonna get away with that. And I think with tennis, a lot of the pro tennis players out there, I think that they are stepping up their nutrition plan.

I think there’s still a long ways they could go, and I know, Yuri, you’re an expert with this, so, certainly, your tips could help a lot of the pro tennis players out there. But just that preparation of knowing that in thirty minutes, you need to have something handy so that you don’t go an hour or two hours after a tough practice or a match.

Yuri: Yeah, and I think that’s probably one of the bigger things that we see a lot of, especially with younger athletes. And, actually, with the, even the ice baths, we just started preseason, as I mentioned yesterday, and it’s boiling hot up here.

It’s about forty degrees in the humidity—Celsius—and so we’ve implemented ice baths, like, right after training, and the guys have been just loving it and they’re recovering so much faster. So, that’s a really good tip. The hot-cold contrast showers are awesome too.

Jeff: Yeah, for sure.

Yuri: Well, nutrition, I mean, nutrition, I find, as you mentioned, I think it’s a big crutch for a lot of athletes, and it’s something I’ve always been interested in, especially among tennis stars, ’cause it’s always interesting to see if there’s a lot of difference between players.

Do you have an idea, like, maybe what was a typical day like for you in terms of, you know, your daily diet when you were playing? Do you have any idea of what some of the other players are eating throughout the day? Just to give people a sense of, you know, what the things that they’re doing are.

Jeff: Yes, well, again, nutrition and health and training has been my passion probably intensely for about the last eight years because when I was twenty-four—I actually had a lot of injuries; I had two surgeries by the time I was twenty-four, and I actually was playing better tennis at thirty than I was when I was twenty-four.

I broke the top hundred for the first time then, and I was kind of becoming known on the tour as the organic, holistic-type pro tennis player, and I certainly wasn’t extreme in that I was, you know, vegetarian or eating raw. I didn’t go that route, but people on the tour, players on the tour kinda looked at me. I was drinking my green-powder drinks and I was going to Whole Foods.

Now I think, again, about five years later, a lot more athletes are doing those sort of things. You know, they’ve got the right supplements, they’ve got the green drinks, they’re eating more vegetables, but I’ve definitely seen, again, even some of the top players really not eating as clean as they can, and what I wonder about is, certainly, nutrition is not gonna help a top player hit a better forehand, so they can get away with competing at a high level without having a great diet, especially when they’re younger.

But I do see it catch up to athletes, whether they know it or not, maybe in their late twenties, certainly into their thirties. So, you see Mardy Fish actually dropped thirty pounds this year and really made a commitment. I think he hired a chef and cleaned up his—he got the pizzas and the sugars out of his diet. He’s playing the best tennis of his life at twenty-eight just because he dropped the weight and he looks great.

Andy Roddick did the same thing last year; he dropped fifteen pounds. There was this notion for a while that you need to get big and bulky just to be strong, but, really, what you wanna do is get as strong as humanly possible, carrying as little weight as possible, you know?

It’s more the relative maximal strength, the relative strength rather than getting big and bulky. So, definitely a movement in that direction. I really think the next frontier with athletes is—especially the guys like Federer, who can afford it—actually traveling with a chef.

I mean, they travel with a coach, they travel with a physio, but if they had a chef that was preparing all their meals, I mean, these guys could play until they were forty or forty-five. I just think the body starts to break down at twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty if you’re not putting clean fuel in your body.

Yuri: Yeah, that’s some great advice, and I couldn’t agree more. One of the, again, one of the biggest issues that I’ve seen personally is a lot athletes thinking that, ‘Hey, it’s okay, I’m gonna burn the calories.’ So, they think that because they’re exercising a lot—whether it’s tennis or any other sport—they can afford to eat whatever they want.

I mean, look at Michael Phelps, right? A guy who’s eating so many calories of garbage, that’s bound to catch up with you. And I think that one of the biggest benefits to eating organic and a lot more of a vegetarian-based diet, you know, like you had mentioned, is that it definitely helps the recovery, and I think that’s a really important, you know, component that you touched upon earlier, is that recovery is so huge, especially at that top level, where you’re playing so often and training so much.

Even if it’s for the, you know, the person who’s working out at the gym five, six, seven days a week; being able to recover is so important to your ability to continue, you know, at the top of your game, whatever that game might be.

Jeff: Yeah. Actually, you know, up in your neck of the woods, in Canada, I played the Canadian Open several years ago, and one American player, who has retired several years ago, he either finaled or won it, but he was telling me that the entire week of the Canadian Open, he actually at McDonald’s every single day, and he won that tournament.

And that just kinda proves the point that hey, you know, for one week you could probably get away with it, but this guy was outta the game by the time he was twenty-eight. I mean, he would wake up in the morning, and he would say, ‘Jeff, do you ever get sore?’ I’m like, ‘No, I never get sore.’

This guy was sore every single day; he had shin splints and he was a mess by the time he was twenty-eight. So, he had that success at twenty-three and he ate the McDonald’s every day, but it caught up to him. His livelihood was affected because he didn’t put good fuel in his body.

You know, that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to become a nutritional therapy practitioner as well as a high-performance tennis coach, is I wanted to be able to share this information with people that they could go out and actually live their best life possible and perform at optimal levels on the tennis court or on the field.

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Stay tuned for PART 3 coming tomorrow.

In the meantime, you can start training like a pro here.

Related posts:

1. Train Like a Pro – Interview with Tennis Pro, Jeff Salzenstein
2. Train Like a Pro (Part 3)
3. Fittest Athletes?

If you’re on the hunt for a killer chest workout, not only are you going to want to make sure that you’re choosing your exercises as best as possible but it’s also going to be vital that you’re paying attention to the order you’re performing them, the reps and sets you perform, as well as the overall tempo that you use.

All of these factors are going to integrate together to help you build the best fat burning workouts and help you develop those chest muscles like you desire.

Let’s have a quick look at what you should know to design your own killer chest workout.

Exercise Selection

When it comes to fat burning workouts, you’re going to want to be sure that you’re working as many muscles as possible all at once.  This is going to allow you to get lean the fastest so you show more muscle definition and just create a chest that looks that much better.

The best movements then to choose to create your killer chest workouts are bench press, incline bench press, and decline bench press.  All of these can be executed using a heavy weight and will fully stimulate every single muscle fiber within the chest area.

Just be sure that you are using a spotter while performing these movements since that way if you do get stuck, you’ll have the help you need.

Then once those are added into your chest workout plan, add in some isolation work such as chest fly’s, cable chest fly’s, as well as dips.  These will then help to bring out that bit more muscle definition you’re after and help boost your results up to the next level.

Rep and Set Ranges

Second, think about set and rep ranges.  For the main, heavy compound lifts that you start with, aim for 3-5 sets of each, working in the 5-8 rep range.  This is what will best allow you to target the muscles like you should and develop that large amount of muscular strength.

Then when moving on to the isolation exercises, think higher reps with slightly less weight.  This again will call out that muscle definition and help to balance out the strength that you build with the previous movements.

Tempo

Finally, we have tempo.  When doing the bench press variations aim for a tempo that is slightly slower and more controlled so the muscle fibers really get challenged but then when moving to the isolation movements, use a faster tempo that works the fast-twitch muscle fibers and helps you develop speed and quickness.

So keep these points in mind as you go about developing your killer chest workout. If you use them all then you should have no trouble seeing the high level of development that you should from this main muscle group.

Do you have any chest workout tips that you’d like to share?

Related posts:

1. 7 Killer Kettlebell Exercises For Maximum Strength
2. Running and Strength Training Workout
3. Full Body Workout For Strength

I’ve got a special treat for you guys over the next few days.

You’re about to learn how to train like a pro and discover the training, diet, and recovery strategies of the world’s top tennis players. Even if you’re not a tennis player, this is golden information that can your workouts and overall diet.

So, this is PART 1 of an interview I did with my good buddy Jeff Salzenstein – who is a former Top 100 pro tennis player. He shares some really great stuff. Enjoy…

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Yuri: Hey, guys, Yuri Elkaim here, and on today’s call I’m really excited because I’ve got a good buddy of mine, who I just recently met a couple months ago.

His name is Jeff Salzenstein and I’m really excited because Jeff is a former professional tennis player and he’s gonna bring us some really, really cool insight into the world of pro tennis, but, you know, obviously, not a lot of us are in that world, but what we’re trying to get out of this call, really, in this interview is that he’s gonna show us how some of the top athletes, how some of the top players are training to keep in such great shape, and then we’re gonna kinda look at how we can and how you can apply a lot of those into your training regime as well. So, Jeff, thanks for joining us, buddy.

Jeff: Hey, awesome to be here. Thanks so much, Yuri, for having me.

Yuri: No problem. And just before we start, you said you were ranked in the top one hundred, right? Is that correct?

Jeff: Yeah, I’ll give you a quick background on my tennis history. I started at a very young age, was a National Junior champion by age twelve. I actually dropped off a bit in the middle of my junior career, but by the time I was eighteen, I was top four in the country in the juniors and went on to Stanford University and played there and was a two-time All-American and won two national team titles there and was able to play with Paul Goldstein, who is another top tennis pro, top fifty in the world, top sixty, top fifty in the world, and just got exposed to a lot of great players at Stanford and decided to try my luck on the pro tour.

It actually wasn’t part of the plan. I just improved a lot in college. I developed a really big serve, and my coaches said, ‘Hey, you should give this pro tour thing a shot.’ I thought I was gonna be a lawyer or doctor someday. It turned out I ended up playing eleven years on the tour. I have a great passion for tennis, a great passion for health and nutrition, and I took those passions on the tour and learned a ton while I was out there.

So, while I was playing and competing with the best in the world and having an opportunity to practice with different generations of players, you know, Sampras and Federer and the likes of those top players—I really studied what it takes to be a pro athlete, what can help you get to the next level, because I had a lot of injuries and I had a lot of challenges breaking through certain barriers, so it was just an awesome experience to play as long as I did, and now I’ve shifted that focus as a player.

I’m now coaching in Denver, Colorado, working with a lot of junior tennis players, but, really, I just wanna help all athletes and all tennis players that wanna get better, that wanna improve, and I believe you can improve every day with the right information if you apply it.

Yuri: That’s awesome, that’s really cool. And I guess we’ll kinda dig deeper into some of that during this interview. I guess getting started, in your eyes, how has tennis changed—I guess, specifically, fitness in tennis changed over the last twenty years?

If you look at guys like, you know, Jimmy Connors and McEnroe way back when, they’re very different physically from, like, a guy like Nadal or González, who are, you know, just monsters on the court.

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, it’s been an incredible transformation, and I think you probably see that in all sports but tennis for sure. I mean, thirty, forty years ago, the Aussies and some of the Americans were ruling tennis and they would finish their matches and they’d go grab a beer afterwards and chill out and party a little bit.

Now it’s a twenty-four-seven gig, and that really started with Ivan Lendl, for those tennis fans out there that are familiar with tennis history. Ivan Lendl was probably one of the first guys that took physical fitness and physical training to the next level with tennis.

And then your next guy was Jim Courier; there were commercials of him, you know, dragging sleds and tires in the Florida heat, you know, maybe fifteen years ago. And then you had Agassi, who had this resurgence at age twenty-eight, twenty-nine, you know, running up Magic Mountain in Las Vegas.

So, you just seen this incredible shift to, going from being just kind of a tennis player to being a complete athlete, and Rafa Nadal has taken that to the absolute extreme level. I mean, this guy can just bust out one-arm push-ups like they’re goin’ outta style, and he can go all day. It’s just a physical sport, and they’re animals out there.

I mean, when I came off the tour three years ago or kinda near the end of my career, I thought I was physically a pretty strong guy compared to the rest of the herd, but nowadays if you go out there, everybody’s just an absolute beast.

Yuri: Yeah, and it definitely shows in terms of the power and the way the game has changed as well. You mentioned Andre Agassi, and I think he’s, he’s actually, I believe he’s won the most titles after the age of twenty-nine I think, and a lot of that they kind of attribute to his training and a lot of the stuff that he did.

He had a trainer, Gil Reyes, that he worked with for a number of years. Do you have any insight into some of the stuff that he did as he got older? You mentioned running up Magic Mountain in Vegas. Do you have any insight into maybe some of the training that he did to help him get in such great shape as he got older?

Jeff: Yeah, well, Andre is a mentor and example to most of us pro tennis players to see how he was able to turn his career around. It really started with his mind-set. He decided with his coaches and with his team and his trainers that he was gonna just go for it, and I think when he made that decision, instead of just relying on his talent, he made that conscious decision to go the next level with his training.

That’s when everything changed for him and got better for him. As far as training goes, basically, Gil Reyes was the mastermind behind that. I had an opportunity to actually observe one of his workouts with Marcos Baghdatis last year in the gym, and they just get after it.

There’s a huge mental component, you know, really pushing through the sets and the reps and really just understanding that you’ve gotta put the work in and the yard work and the road work in and the gym work in to be able to last three out of five sets day after day after day.

As far as running up Magic Mountain, I mean, obviously, interval training and running up hills is an incredible way to get in shape, to burn fat, to increase muscular endurance, but I do think there are some more efficient ways to train. You know, again, running up those hills, there’s some questions on whether that ultimately hurt Agassi’s career with his back problems, you know?

So, I think there are some different ways to train, but the ultimate lesson that we need to be learning from this is that they had a systematic approach, they followed it, and they just got stronger every day, every week, every month, and he was fitter at thirty-three than he was at twenty-five, by a long stretch.

Yuri: Yeah, totally. And you mentioned you observed a workout with Reyes and Baghdatis. Baghdatis won the Australian Open in, what was it, ’07 or ’08? Somewhere around there?

Jeff: Yeah, finals in the Australian Open a few years back and, you know, another guy that’s just an immense talent. He’s had some challenges with injuries the last few years, and that’s something we can maybe touch on a little bit later, but they really focus a lot on the legs and the core and, you know, Gil focuses more on machine-type exercises.

He’s got, actually, some special machines that he’s designed, but I’m a big body-weight guy. If you look at some of the strongest athletes in the world—I mean, you’re gonna look at gymnasts, you’re gonna look at wrestlers—and they’re doing a lot of stuff with body weight.

I see a lot of athletes, a lot of weekend warriors that they can’t even do a basic push-up. I really think that you’ve gotta master simple body-weight exercises, and then you start loading up resistance on top of that; being able to do push-ups, pull-ups, single-leg stuff, holding deep-lunge positions. All those things you take for granted.

You wanna be on the machines, you wanna do all these intricate things, but you gotta be able to handle your body weight and be able to get as strong as you can so that when you can use your body weight in certain ways on the court or on the field, everything just becomes that much easier in your chosen sport, especially with tennis.

And Nadal shows he’s the strongest guy on the tour, and he’s very intimidating because he’s the strongest guy. He can hit the ball harder, he can create more spin, he can reach out and hit shots from all angles, and people marvel at it, but a lot of it is due to just pure physical strength.

Yuri: That’s true and I guess the unfortunate part for most people is that most people are exposed to, I guess, commercial gyms where machines are the latest and greatest, and I think if we have less of those and people are kind of subjected to just using their body weight, they’d be a little bit better off.

Now, in terms of playing at the professional level, what are the, you know, the different elements that are required to, like, physically to play tennis at the top?

Jeff: Yeah, well, as I mentioned earlier, being an athlete, being a pro tennis player, it’s a twenty-four-seven job. These guys and girls are waking up in the morning, they’re having to eat right, they’re having to train correctly on the court, they’re doing lots of great drills on the court but off the court, the preparation that goes into it, the dynamic warm-ups, they usually have a therapist or trainer with them if they’re top fifty, top thirty in the world.

If you don’t have a trainer, which most of us don’t have, you’re gonna have to learn some of the tools to be able to take care of yourself, and, again, that just goes into, you know, getting massages, maybe using a foam roller to help you break up the adhesions that you feel in your body, dynamic warm-up, sprinting, as I alluded to, body-weight exercises, resistance stance.

All of this is incorporated into a program, and you’ll see all these tennis players doing that throughout the day before and after practice, and then there’s a huge emphasis on rest and recovery. I mean, that part is often overlooked, or people don’t really think about it. They’re always thinking about, Well, what do I need to do to train?

Well, Roger Federer, he’s on the massage table two to three hours a day, and there’s a reason why he’s so limber and he looks effortless on the court. It’s because his tissue is just so soft. So, there’s a lot that goes into being a pro athlete and it’s very comprehensive.

And even though most weekend warriors are people that aspire to be pro athletes, they might not have the time to train six hours a day, but they certainly can implement some of the things that they’re doing and create amazing results.

Yuri: Totally. So, along those lines, in terms of the everyday person, what kind of tips would you give from, like, warming up to the actual workout, to cooldown, and maybe some recover strategies to help them out?

Jeff: Yeah, well, all the rage right now is doing some type of dynamic mobility warm-up. I feel that static stretching is a thing of the past; it’s about as outdated as the Aussies drinking beers after their matches. I mean, some type of movement exercise where you’re warming the body up, you’re increasing overall core temperature with the body, and you’re moving into different ranges of motions that are gonna somewhat resemble your chosen sport.

So, a dynamic warm-up is great. I also think that whatever sport you’re playing—and in this case it’s tennis—we often have our athletes do a lot of shadow stroking and practice the specific footwork patterns that they’re gonna be using on a tennis court.

You know, I see a lot of people warm up, and they just jog around the tennis court or, you know, they jog around a soccer field, but I really think that as soon as you’ve kinda done that dynamic warm-up, you should start getting into some drills that incorporate the specific movement pattern that you’re gonna be using, and I think, again, I see too many athletes that get on the treadmill and they just run and run and run, but that’s not really teaching their body to move exactly how it needs to move on a tennis court or a football field or a basketball court. So, those are just a few of the things that I believe strongly in.

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Stay tuned for PART 2 coming tomorrow!

Related posts:

1. Train Like a Pro (Part 2) with Jeff Salzenstein
2. Train Like a Pro (Part 3)
3. Interview with Santa: Secret Fitness Tips Revealed!