The show? Searching for big foot.

Now during this particular episode and I have a feeling that they are all pretty much the same this team goes searching for the elusive big foot and have several different techniques that they attempt for finding them. Here are a couple things in the episode that caught my attention.

They started making these howling noises to get the Sasquatch’s attention and lure him in.
They used pyrotechnics to try and attract the missing link (right the shy and elusive big foot is going to attracted by loud fiery noises)
They would bang a stick against a tree claiming that it was a good way of attracting big foot (really how many times has that worked?)
One person has spent the last 25 years of his life trying to find him (I would have a hard time justifying spending 25 years and having nothing to show for it)

Now what the heck does this have to do with anything fitness related? Well first off big foot is real. He used to train in a gym I used to work at and was a big fan of jump stretch bands in the squat rack and having a big bag of stuff in the middle of the gym floor. But no that isn’t where I am going with this.

This parallels fitness more then you might think. First let’s go on the example of the howling, banging a stick against a tree and using pyrotechnics to attract the elusive creature. When that lady said that it’s a good way to attract big foot…where in the hell did she come up with that idea? Would you find Jane Goodall trying to attract gorilla’s by howling at them and using fireworks? It’s like they are making it up as they go along….just like in fitness.

You want to get in shape…follow this gimmick and get these results. Unfortunately you can’t sell a decent program without having some kind of marketing hook. For whatever reason people won’t buy a program that they know works unless it has some kind of gimmick behind it. Do this it works apparently isn’t marketable unless it’s got some celebrity on the cover. Diet and exercise has to be rewrapped and repackaged and have a hook put on it called muscle confusion or reverse intervals or something to that effect. Many times the genetic blessed are the most sellable whether they know their $hit or not. The non genetically blessed will buy from them thinking that they will look that way too. Don’t believe me, check out your local target and see if Susan Summers has a video out.

Now one other way is about that guy chasing big foot for 25 years with nothing to show for it. Have you ever seen this happening in front of you at the gym? You can set a clock by people’s bench and curl day constantly chasing for something that probably isn’t going to happen. I’m not saying it can’t happen but if you aren’t making progress you ought to take a step back and look at your program and question what you are doing. Don’t necessarily give up but maybe instead of doing bench on Monday’s bro you should do it on Thursday. Maybe you should try big foot’s jump stretch bands or tie some chains on there. Do what you always do and you’ll continue to get what you always had. Are you chasing big foot? Have you caught him? Think about it.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and being awesome.

Probably the most common response was that people were tired of the lies and gimmicks that run rampant in the fitness industry and that they saw me as an honest guy that happened to know what I’m talking about that genuinely wants to help people and had an entertaining writing style.

Awhile back I did an unfavorable write up on p90x plyometrics X and recently it’s caught a lot of people’s attention many of which I guess I hurt their feelings.

Personal attacks began which to me demonstrates the depth of their intelligence or lack thereof. I guess they didn’t read that I had said that p90x actually does get some pretty good and legit before and after pics. In a day and age where on a bag of peanuts you have to put the disclaimer of “Caution, may contain peanuts” I shouldn’t have been that surprised.

It better contain peanuts, or I'll be upset

p90x plyometrics x is not real plyometrics

neither is p90x yoga x

or kenpo x

The results from p90x aren’t from the muscle confusion marketing gimmick…they are from…wait for it…hard exercise + nutrition…the hallmark of any halfway decent fat loss program.

BUT despite all that, unlike many late night products, the results in the p90x before and after pictures as far as I can tell real….that’s the most important part

not real plyos, but it's better then the "Situation Workout"

Now…why would I do unfavorable review about p90x plyometrics x?

Well first I am an honest guy and that was an honest review even though it wasn’t what a lot of people want to hear.

Second, p90x gets 2,240,000 monthly searches with low keyword competition and it made it low hanging fruit for me to piggy back traffic off of p90x’s notoriety and present some alternatives.

Third, it’s a bit of fun for me to ruffle your feathers and a lot of people played right into it (owned!).

Fourth was to sneak in a way to educate people that might be interested on what true plyos really are and explain it which just happened to be very different then what p90x plyometrics x is. Note…plyos are heavily abused and there are a lot worse offenders then air guitar squats and some other things on the plyometrics x dvd and in general there are a lot worse programs out there that people could make the mistake of following. Jillian Micheals and Bob Harper…yes that was a dig towards you.

oh and I think p90x is a better program then insanity for the record…because it balances the pushing movements with pulling ones.

A short time ago I was interviewed for Garage Gym online and was asked about my stance in p90x and if you had read it you might have recalled me saying “If the worst thing people did was p90x then the industry is still a lot better off then people trying to take acai berry extracts and doing Hip Hop Abs (another Beach Body product).”

So because p90x actually does help people, even if it’s not real plyos, or yoga, or kenpo, and because p90x does not have over 200 cases and counting of exercise induced rhabdomyalsis and because an unfavorable review might prevent someone from buying p90x and mislead them into buying some BS kettlebell program like KettleWorx, Kettlenetics or the Situation Workout (I’m saving a review for them later) they probably wouldn’t have the attention to detail to learn safe technique anyways, and because a girl I’ve become friendly with said “please” in a way that makes it hard to say “no”. I am going to plead to Tony Horton who probably won’t read either post to please forgive me anyways.

Tony, if you can hear me, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings even though I doubt you read my post. Please forgive me and keep “bringing it”.

And please cease the attacks on this “worthless nobody”, my narcissistic ego can’t possibly take it anymore. Sticks and stones may break my bones but comments on my blog from someone without a face will make me cry myself to sleep. Maybe I should go bend some spikes or roll up a frying pan or something to make me feel better.

Eric Moss
Thanks for being awesome…or forgiving…which is divine and all that stuff.

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Now how does this relate to your new year’s resolution? Well much like in the movie we only have so much will power to use before we run out and end up giving in so one way of succeeding is to limit the amount of will power you actually need. If you are on a fat loss program, get that chocolate out of sight and therefore out of mind.

Now if you have been following me for any period of time you may have heard me speak of the “terminator mentality” which is a disciplined like a cyborg, concentrated focus on achieving your goals. That will lead to success but it’s meant as a short term solution till you can get to a place where it becomes a habit which is much easier to maintain and can be fit into a lifestyle. Limit your temptation, and you are less likely to cave in.

Now another thing about will power is that much like anything, if you practice building it you can. Start with the idea of success in mind and straying from the course becomes less likely. When I start out a new client I’ll ask them what their goal is not just for me to plan a course to get there but also to remind them of their dream when the going gets tough so that they can power through it. You can train yourself to power through. Just like with anything take it one step at a time but start with the goal in mind.

I’ve recently started strongman training. I have am lucky in that I have a coach willing to teach me the secrets of the old time performing strongmen and I’ll reveal a bit of it here. First you have to have a base level of strength. Second is the technique to pit your strength with. And Third is you have to have a will power greater then steel. I won’t go into technique since I just started learning this 2 weeks ago and I wanted this to be about will power anyways. The way I would describe it is you are pitting your strength against the steel and it is fighting you right back. Just when you think you can’t bend it, you just hang in there a little bit longer, and that’s when it gives up and bends. I got to say it feels pretty awesome to conquer steel.

yes I did this

Now since I won’t go into technique I’ll provide you with a great resource about bending steel that I picked up last year. Jedd Johnson is a strong dude with a strong grip and put out a dvd awhile back called How to Melt Steel With Your Hands (Nail Bending Dvd) and it’s got some great stuff in it. It’s interesting that he talks about it melting because when you bend it, it actually does get warm where the bend occurs.

Well anyways work towards your goals and physical awesomeness to you!

the fruits of my labor

When I was going through my 12 week transformation I had a very strict diet. Food was weighed in a very specific proportion and eaten according to a preset schedule. Yeah I got ripped but as soon as the after pictures were taken I headed off to a burger joint and stuffed around 2000 calories down my gullet. It worked, but it was not sustainable. Nobody wants to weigh food all the time.

I was having a conversation with someone in my bootcamp class that had done the Paleo diet but found it difficult to stick to. He asked around on a popular forum about it and the response people gave him was to have a ziplock bag full of flax seeds to chew on.

Really?

That’s not a sustainable lifestyle…at least not for regular people. If you are surrounded by fitness junkies, yeah it’ll work. If you are a regular person that just wants to be lean and ripped and also wants to live a regular life then you need a nutrition style that minimizes how much it interrupts your lifestyle.

This is where Eat Stop Eat shines. This is the easiest nutrition program to stick to period. You want to eat the food that isn’t all that great for you? Yeah that’s fine. Just tweak it with a fast to either balance it out (to maintain) or to put you in a caloric deficit to lose body fat.

Oh sure someone that’s over weight is likely to tell you that your metabolism will crash and you’ll starve to death if you fast to lose weight but my metabolic rate runs hot despite me fasting. It made me ripped, not starved. Besides in Brad Pilon’s ebook he talks about several different scientific studies that say that it is actually healthy to fast.

Having to constantly digest food can be stressful to your stomach. Doing a fast gives it a bit of a rest.

When you fast you improve your insulin sensitivity, something that helps prevent diabetes, fat gain and that sort of thing.

When you fast your body switches from burning up stored sugar to burning up stored fat for energy.

When you fast it puts you in a quick caloric deficit which is critical for fat loss. Think about it. For as many methods of training that claim to burn 1000 calories, the quickest way to get rid of 1000 calories is to not eat them in the first place.

Training while fasted stimulates more growth hormone. This is a good thing.

I know it sounds a bit like common sense to quit eating for a short period of time but you’d be amazed at how people are pre programmed to believe they have to eat breakfast and lunch. Just like with many things I found that doing the opposite of the norm gives me better results.

You might think that you’d have no strength when training in a fasted state but when I first started experimenting with this. I didn’t find that to be the case.

But anyways the basic premise of this diet is to eat the way you normally do, then to fast for 24 hours one or two days a week. Think about how easy that would be.

Honestly you really ought to just read the ebook since he can explain it better then I can (he has a 74 page ebook about the subject rather then a blog post). He even includes the scientific references at the end. That way you know he isn’t just making this stuff up. It’s actually based on scientific fact. It’s just a different source science compared to what you had heard before.

Will you starve to death? No. A fast is a willfully abstaining from foods that are bad for you. And you won’t have to fast nearly long enough to starve to death.

And as much science as there is about fasting there is also a lot of “in the trenches research”. Fasting has been around for centuries. It’s been part of several religions to do a fast.

And then after the fast, you resume your normal eating habits which will prevent your metabolism from crashing. In other words you can eat and lose weight. And that’s not even including eating healthy foods. You can eat normal people food as well.

So anyways I do recommend everybody to read Eat Stop Eat. It’s something I do along with the Warrior Diet (the other one I follow normally) and it allows me to maintain a lean physique and I actually feel pretty good while doing it.

As I’m going through his channel I come upon a video that talks about “building a massive chest” and me being a curious sort of fellow with some more time to burn I watch the video…and then I heard it

It’s not how strong you are. It’s how strong you look like you are.

As you can probably guess I take a bit of issue with this. First of all there are sensors in our brains that they still don’t quite understand but they are able to sniff out a faker. Two studies talk about this. I discovered these when I was checking up on the research that Adonis Effect was based on.

Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face

and

Adaptations in humans for assessing physical strength from the voice

The first study took some pictures of men’s faces and the audience was able to determine who was strong and who was a wimp just from their face alone. How could this be? Some mysterious thing in our brain.

The second study had people guess who was strong and who had the muscle and might of a wet noodle from people playing telephone with pipes and that sort of thing. They were able to guess who was the badass from their voice as well. How could this be? That brain thing again.

This is supposed to go back to the theory that when it came to evolution and way back in the day we introduced ourselves as Ogg and Grok, dudes had to know who was a badass so they wouldn’t mess with him “Touch me and I’ll sue wasn’t a threat back then.” and girls wanted to know who can give them strong babies and who would be able to lay the smackdown on a sabertooth tiger should it threaten his offspring and lady.

So apparently it’s not how strong you look that really matters after all. The best part is you can have both worlds if you train for it. As Aurthur Saxon did, train for strength and the shape will take care of itself. Admittedly you can use different methods of measurement to you can make sure you are balanced and give you an idea of what needs more attention but if you aren’t getting stronger…well that’s a shame.

And also, who the hell wouldn’t want to become strong either? You want to have muscles that when it comes time to test their power they got nothing to back it up? If you saw a Lamborghini wouldn’t you be disappointed if you discovered it was only sporting 150 horse power? Strength is useful for all sorts of things and it’s less vain…which can help with that whole image consulting thing.

You want a cool image? Be strong, lean, fit and all that stuff that comes with it. At the very least you’ll be able to pick up more then just girls.