DF Tip #10: "A Tip to Bergman"

Enjoy!

"A Tip to Bergman"

Andrew

DF Tip #9: The Wisdom of Günter

Last week I was off on a tirade about some fitness topic or other -- I can't remember what, since once they're written I feel instantly better and go to my quiet place -- and I mentioned in passing that there is one thing I can be sure to hear at some point from everyone kind enough to hit me up for personal training. Male or female, young or old, they all say:

"I don't want to get too big!"

They gesture distastefully towards one of the mammoths that work out at my gym and grimace in fear, as if tentatively hoisting a single dumbbell will endow them with Jurassic proportions.

Here's the final word on that: It's not going to happen.

All respect to the big guys. I know I give them a hard time, probably because no self-respecting, 20-inch-neck bodybuilder would be caught dead reading the fitness wisdom of a 179-pound wastrel like me, so they'll never read my derisive words. But the fact is that most of them are good guys -- albeit with a curious obsession--and the vast majority are drug-free. But ALL of them, yes, even the 'roid-heads, have paid for every muscle cut and striation in blood, sweat, toil and tears. The big guys work hard.

I know because back in my fledgling days, I wanted to be one of them: I wanted to get big and bulky and never have to take no guff from NO ONE, man! (I was young.) But, as I found out, getting big is tough going.

Personally, the biggest I ever got, at 6 feet with relatively low bodyfat, was 192 pounds -- a Lilliputian compared to the 5'9" guys you see at any Gold's who tip the scales at 230 or so. And that was lifting as heavy as I could handle, 5 days a week, eating gluttonously 6 times a day. Mind you, I was only able to sustain that weight for about a week and a half before I had to ease off on the gluttony and the continuous onslaught of heavy iron. In short order, I dropped 10 pounds of beef and I've stayed right around there ever since. Upkeep on that relatively paltry amount of extra bulk was just too much for me, and nowadays I file "muscle-bulk-building" right alongside "memorizing the phone book" in Heffernan's Guide to Worthwhile Ways to Spend Time.

Now there are certainly people -- men, almost exclusively -- whose bodies are, genetically, muscle-building machines. They stay on a fairly sane exercise program and develop huge arms, chests and legs the likes of which I could never compete with on my best day. But these people are in the minority.

Point is that declaring on your first day in the gym that "No matter what, I don't want to look like a bodybuilder!" is a little like telling the coach, on your first day of ski camp, that you don't want to make the Olympic team. Or telling Mr. Jenkins the band teacher that you want to be a pretty good violin player but you don't under any circumstances want to get good enough to play with the London Symphony Orchestra. People with insatiable drive, ambition, and focus spend decades trying to accomplish these things, and even they sometimes fall heartbreakingly short, so it's unlikely -- I won’t say impossible -- that you'll turn your body into a Michelangelo by anything like an accident.

I wouldn't get so worked up over this seemingly-minor misconception except that it has unfortunate consequences in the way people approach weight training. Gym newbies and veterans alike assume that because Günter the Megalithic lifts big weights, they shouldn't go near anything over about 12 pounds lest they find themselves, suddenly, looking like Günter. Which, again, is like refusing to practice your karate kicks lest you transmogrify into Bruce Lee by accident.

The weights that the people with this syndrome lift are light. Helium balloon light. It's almost harder to put the weights down than to pick them up, they're so light. And guess what happens to their bodies when they lift those little weights?

Nothing. The fear of "bulking up" has resulted in more ineffective workouts than Richard Simmons has done in his entire life of Sweatin’ to the Oldies. That muscles get stronger and fitter when you overload them with heavier weights that you are used to is one of the surest things in exercise physiology. No overload? No growth.

Here's the deal: whether you're using "light" or "heavy" weight does not change the fact that you should always be working to overload the body. Meaning that if you're shooting for 15 reps, the weight you choose should be all you can handle for those 15 reps. It should not feel like raising a martini glass. You should not be able to tell your trainer an amusing anecdote about your night clubbing with Gore Vidal on Key West while you're lifting it. A good half of my clients balk when I hand them a heavier weight than they're used to, then surprise themselves by pounding out the required 15 reps anyway. Yes, they're grunting and straining around rep 10, but I'll be jiggered if they don't get all 15, and a little healthy glow of accomplishment in the process.

It's tough, working with high reps in the right way. Back in my bulkier days I always looked forward to heavy days of 8-rep sets because they weren't as painful as long, hard sets with lighter weights that required more endurance and tolerance for pain. But whether you're working "light" or "heavy" (I put that in quotes because my heavy might be your light or vice versa), all sets after your warm-up should be tough. You should work for an overload.

Working like this, you'll certainly get leaner, stronger, more cut and muscular, but unless you lift as heavy as you can 4-6 times a week and scarf down more chicken than John Belushi in The Blues Brothers, you're not going to get too big.

The difference in the way you train and the way Günter trains should really be a difference in degree rather than kind. After all, Günter has good definition, muscle strength and size, all of which you want -- just not to the same extent as Günter. And you never see Günter put down his weights till he's spent, whether he's lifting 50 pounds 20 times or 500 pounds 2 times.

Guess what? Günter's on to something.

Good luck, everyone!

Andrew

PS: Please pass these tips along to interested friends, and/or forward me their email so I can send them directly along! And feel free to shoot me your fitness questions any time.

Thanks -- A

DF Tip #8: Don't be a Cardio Zombie!

Next time you're in the gym, take a stroll by the folks working out on the cardio machines and conduct a little informal worker-effectiveness survey. Your boss does it to you all the time, might as well get a little of your own back.

If your gym is like most of the health clubs I know, what you'll see is a handful of exercisers sweating themselves silly, many more than that going doggedly but disconnectedly through the motions, and a full half of them barely moving. Their legs might be lazily turning the pedals of some machine, but their focus is elsewhere: they're reading the paper, they're watching TV, they're talking on their cell phones, for Pete’s sake.

You'd think you'd encounter a different vibe in the free weight room, where the hardcore gym elite supposedly toils, scoffing at the efforts of mortals, admiring their crustacean physiques in the mirror. But the cross-section there is no different. Sure, there's more grunting and preening, but anyone who's really pushing their limits, subjecting themselves to a new stimulus which will make their bodies stronger, leaner, faster, more flexible will stand out like Pee-Wee Herman at a biker bar. And, incidentally, such people are often just about as welcome: a gym manager yelled at me once for sweating too much. Not on the equipment, mind you: on the floor.

Oh, the irony.

Look, I applaud anyone’s efforts to get fit. I recognize that the cell-phone stationary biker might have nothing else to give that day. I also recognize that not everyone enjoys pushing his body's limits till he’s a quivering mass of semi-organic goo on a daily basis like I do. I also know that there are people out there who are reasonably happy with how they look and feel and just go to the gym to maintain where they're at, unwind, chat with friends, maybe sit in a steam room and relax a little. Different goals, different personalities.

So why don't I just clam up, do my own frantic, heart-attack-inducing workouts, and keep my judgments to myself, Fitness-Obsesso-Boy?

I really should.

But here's this week's wouldn’t-it-be-nice sentiment: Most people are in the gym to affect change, and very few of the workouts I see people doing are effective in this regard. I can live with that -- begrudgingly. But what baffles me to my core is this: if people are paying good money for gym memberships and then taking valuable time to work out, why in Sam Hill don’t they at least pay attention to the workout itself? Such workouts are like placeholders for the workout that you think you'll have the energy and inclination to do someday…but not today.

In our busy lives, a few stolen hours a week to exercise are golden, friends. Even if you're going to creep like snail unwillingly to fitness-school on the treadmill, even if you're going to keep your weights perpetually light because you "don't want to bulk up!" at least pay attention to what you're doing. At least enjoy moving, enjoy breathing a little harder than usual, at least spend some time appreciating what Fiona Apple calls the "extraordinary machine" we live in. It may be the most rewarding part of exercise.

Long after the days of 250-pound bench presses, I hope I’ll be like the trim, energetic man I met doing laps at the pool the other day, who swims for an hour a day, seven days a week, rain or shine. He looks to be about 15 years younger than his 72 years.

What I'm talking about here is mindfulness, folks. Paying attention, showing up, being in the moment. Our busy lives threaten at every turn to transform our bodies into brain-housing devices, troublesome and demanding mechanisms useful only in moving us around so we can hook up to another machine and perform more income-generating work. For many of us, the only chance we get to remedy this mind-body schism is during those few hours we set aside to exercise. But the cardio- and weight- zombies described above are doing quite the opposite: they're doing one thing with their bodies (exercising) and quite another with their minds (cell phone, TV, chatting with friends), thus widening the very mind-body gap that focused exercise can help to close.

So what's to be done?

Well, working out hard is one solution, and, by now, you can probably guess is the solution that works for me. It's tough to space out too much when you've got hundreds of pounds of iron slung across your shoulders, or when you're staring down the business end of hill number seventeen on Mulholland Drive.

And that’s not the only way: T'ai Chi practitioners are the picture of mindfulness, and their workouts aren't of the sweat-buckets variety. Most martial artists are as well, but I don't think you have to go to the Far East to find mindfulness: check out a spinning class and chances are you'll find the same focused intention I'm talking about.

But really, and I've said this before, the activity itself isn't important. As the 2-man luge and the curling competitors in the Olympics have shown us these last few nights on TV, you can be mindful doing anything — even your same old workout. Give it a try next time — it takes no more time and only marginally more effort. Go ahead and do the same thing you always do, just pay a little more attention: be aware of the space around you, of the way your body feels, of the feel of the weight or the road beneath you. At the end of your workout, whether your pushed your limits or not, you'll feel focused and alert instead of distracted and rushed.

String enough of those workouts together and pretty soon you have a form of practice, something that complements and supports your daily activities rather than serves as yet another distracting obligation. And that's a pretty good feeling.

Have a great week,
Andrew

DF Tip #7: Pointing Up the Pointlessness

Zoologist-turned-poet/raconteur David Whyte tells the following story about an early midlife career crisis. Whyte was working for nonprofit conservation organization, putting in long hours, volunteering at every turn for one worthy but thankless job after another, desperately spinning his wheels in the name of altruism. Exhausted, he consulted a wise friend over a pint of Guinness, who listened to Whyte's account of his predicament and said, "David, the solution to exhaustion is not necessarily rest."

Whyte, who felt that a vacation was more than deserved, bristled.

"The solution to exhaustion," the friend continued, "is wholeheartedness."

I may be cutting off my nose to spite my face here, but the fact is that you don't necessarily need weight training and aerobics, as we normally think of them, to achieve optimum fitness. The bodybuilding and fitness magazines would like to you believe otherwise, with their "Great Thighs In Three Moves!" articles, but as I've said before, you can skin the fitness cat just about any way you want. The key is finding the "want" part--that activity you can be wholehearted about.

Let's face it. Or rather, I'm going to have to face it, and you can come along with me on this or not, as you please. Not everyone loves weight training, and not everyone loves running on the treadmill or riding on a stationary bike. Personally--newsflash--I'm something of a fitness geek, so the idea of clanging as much weight as I can handle onto a barbell and trying to figure out a way to get that thing aloft on my own steam holds a kind of masochistic joy for me. It's pointless, of course--I'm not really getting "healthier" in any meaningful sense, and it's not going to make me look much different--but as Justice Antonin Scalia once told a courtroom of golfers asking him to settle some pressing matter about the rules of the game, the point of sports is that they're pointless.

Heretical to say, I suppose, with the Olympic Games raging along in full force, young hopefuls hurtling themselves at alarming speeds along various configurations of frozen water. But I think that's part of the appeal of sports. As with the appeal of drama, we get to watch and engage with an event wherein the stakes appear enormously high, all the while knowing that there are really no stakes at all. The enjoyment is metaphorical. Watch humans invest every fiber of their physical, emotional, and spiritual fortitude in some contrived but enjoyable endeavor, and perhaps we will be inspired to invest just as much force of will into whatever endeavors happen to be taking up time and energy in our own lives.

All this is to defend my personal preference for weight training, running, cycling, and swimming endless miles, even getting on an elliptical machine from time to time and sweating my brains out to get through 20 minutes at level 15. Curse you, elliptical trainer! Spurred on by the exploits of Bode Miller and Apolo Anton Ohno, I WILL conquer you someday. Oh yes, I will, all the while knowing that the rewards of reaching that goal are almost entirely symbolic.

But just because those are the activities I like to do doesn't mean they'll light your fire. There are lots of reasons that weight training and cardio activity are great ways to spend your limited recreation time, but if you don't like doing those things, none of my arguments will convince you otherwise.

So look down on us treadmill-runners as the human gerbils we are if you wish. Scoff at your swimming-obsessed co-worker's crispy, chlorinated coif every time you spy it over her cubicle wall. And yes, as much as he brags about it, you can even think that your marathoner brother-in-law is a blowhard who will have no knee cartilage in another 18 months. He probably is.

Just remember this: there’s nothing inherently noble or ridiculous about ANY athletic endeavor. They're all silly, and they’re all great--in part, arguably, because they ARE silly. Like your ma told you, it's how you play the game. Find something YOU can invest in, something that makes YOU excited, and you're golden. Then you'll never hear yourself say, "Oh my god, another 20 minutes of cardio" again. You'll say, "Hey it's Saturday, time for my softball game!" Or "In two weeks I get to SCUBA dive." Or go on a hike, or play jai-alai, or whatever it may be.

It takes a little more effort, granted, to find the thing that gets you fired up. The fitness industry has made it awfully convenient to walk into one of their emporia of sweat and burn off a few hundred calories. But if you hate those Palaces of Pain, for the love of God, don't go. Find another way. There are too many fitness options out there for ALL of us--and I speak to you as a living cautionary tale--to be forever lost in the health-club labyrinth. The energy you invest in finding something you enjoy is energy you will save down the road once you have found an activity you can be wholehearted about.

Happy Hunting, and have a great week--

Andrew

P.S.: Aside from agreeing with him on the appealing pointlessness of sports--which is a true story, by the way--I share few if any opinions in common with Antonin Scalia.

DF Tip #6: Eyes on the Prize

God bless my hardworking fitness clients: they sweat buckets, they do gut-busting sets of Bulgarian split squats, they do all the hoisting and twisting and jumping and skipping I ask of them, the whole time looking wistfully across the gym at other folks doing forearm curls and machine glute squeezes, wishing they had it so easy. Though they occasionally complain about it, my clients work as hard as anyone in the gym, and it makes me happy to see them losing fat, getting stronger, feeling and looking better. And if they’re being consistent and watching their diet and resting adequately, they bound to keep making progress.

But occasionally, inevitably, they hit a wall: a plateau of some kind, or even a backslide of a pound or two. And that’s frustrating for both of us, of course. I mean, if they’re not getting better, surely it means we’re doing something wrong! Right?

Well, maybe.

I’m not infallible, and I can’t police my clients 24-7. But the reality is that for all the sweat you put in, for all the careful measuring of food intake and calories burned, sometimes you just have to be patient, hang in there through a plateau while the body makes the internal changes necessary while prepping for the next surge in progress.

I’ve seen again and again that linear progress—absolutely rock-solid, straight-up-the-mountain improvement with no plateaus and no switchbacking—is a myth. It doesn’t really happen. We like to believe it can and does, not only in fitness but in all aspects of our lives: career, finances, living situation, family. On some level we believe that everything should be constantly improving, and that those trends just go on and on until we DIE, fabulously rich and famous, running 3-minute miles and benching 1500 pounds, surrounded by beautiful supplicants, a trunkload of Most Improved Player awards in the back of our each one of our seventeen Ferraris.

Far be it from me to critique anyone’s ambitions. Some people want to get in shape to get back at their exes, or so they can intimidate a guy at work, or to flaunt their new fitness to someone they can’t stand. I’ll work with anyone, because hopefully at some point along the way they start to enjoy the process and their gradual progress towards these goals becomes a by-product rather than the driving force behind their new fitness habit. And if their ex ever does encounter them and sees the newly radiant glow of fitness in their skin and the sleek, trim physique they’ve build for themselves, and suddenly regrets leaving them, well, so be it, but hopefully it doesn’t spell the end of exercise for them (…Martha.)

The point is this: long-term goals are essential. Without them, few of us would ever get to gym.

When I started training for triathlons last year, I was so terrified of not making it through the swim portion of the race that I always made my early morning workouts, despite having to get up before 5:00 AM sometimes. My long-term goal got me out of bed, but once in the pool or on the road, my enjoyment of the activity took over, and I just enjoyed whatever swimming, biking, or running workout I had planned for myself that day. By keeping a ‘soft eye’ on my long-term goals while enjoying the day-to-day ‘nothing special’-ness of working out, I had a great time, met some great friends, and even managed to pull off fairly decent rookie season as a triathlete.

Now I’m no psychologist, sports or otherwise, but I’ve recognized that everything I’ve accomplished that’s worthwhile in my life has been the result of a balancing act between a long-term goal and a day-to-day commitment. On one hand, you’ve got to choose a goal that fires you up; on the other hand, you’ve got to have the stomach for the day-to-day work as well.

It’s the everyday thing that sabotages so many fitness promises. Now that we’re into February, lots of people will find themselves flagging on their programs a bit. You may have hit a frustrating plateau and decided maybe this isn’t your year to get in shape. Or maybe your life is busier than you thought it would be and there’s not as much time or energy as you thought there would be way back in December.

Don’t waste any energy beating yourself up for these lapses. Just ease yourself back onto the horse and get yourself moving again. Add up enough days when you choose to exercise instead of watching TV, where you choose to eat well instead of poorly, where you choose to drink water instead of soda, and pretty soon your long-term goals will be well within reach.

Best of luck, and have a great week—

Andrew

DF Tip #5: A Fitness Myth

Myths pop up like Hydra’s heads in my profession, usually because a single athlete did something with diet or exercise and achieved some success; subsequently everyone decides that THAT THING is the Holy Grail of health and fitness. We’re all a bit like lemmings in this respect. Learn that Lank Hearthrob eats elderberry root to add definition to his gastrocnemei, and we start downing the stuff like chickens at the trough.

Here’s one of my favorites, Myth #5,236: “I need to lose fat. So I need to do aerobics, not weight training.”

As with most myths, there’s a grain of truth in there: aerobic exercise does burn fat, readily and directly, and that’s why for many years—up to and including today—researchers recommended steady-state, easy aerobic exercise for weight control. They would suggest you go out for a walk with a friend and if you can carry on a conversation, you’re happily in the ‘fat-burning zone.’

There’s nothing WRONG with that advice, exactly—it’s safe and it’s supported by research about health and exercise. But it’s not the whole picture. In fact, it may very well be that the most time-effective way to burn fat is not steady-state aerobic work but its meaner, tougher cousin, heart-pounding, muscle-building anaerobic exercise.

Now I don’t want to slag off your standard aerobic workout. Steady-state aerobic work is great for your cardiovascular system, and it certainly burns fat, but it does so almost exclusively DURING exercise, and even then not until after almost 20 minutes of work—about the time most of us are already in cool-down mode. Following exercise, the metabolism does not stay elevated for an appreciable period. In order to get that post-exercise fat burn, you’ve got to work anaerobically—and for fat-loss, post-exercise fat burn is where it’s at.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at some recent stars of track and field: you’ve got your long-distance runners, your middle-distancers, and your sprinters. It’s reasonable to assume that they’re all spending the bulk of their training hours abiding carefully by the SAID principle (Yes, my tips are cumulative!), and thus doing mostly long, middle, and short distances, respectively. Now, if today’s myth is true—that only aerobic work burns fat—the long distance guys should be lean, the middle-distancers mildly flabby, and the sprinters downright chubsters.

But it ain’t so.

I mean, c’mon—you could lose a purse full of change in the cuts in 100-meter-dasher Maurice Green’s abs. And middle distance queen Marion Jones makes Angela Bassett look like a pre-surgery Al Roker. These folks are lean, mean, anaerobic machines. In fact, for my money, they look better than their long-distance cousins, whose names I don’t know because let’s face it, I’m less impressed by their emaciated physiques. Sprinters look great, and what they do seems exciting and sexy by comparison with the plodding, dogged long-distance guys (I’m a long-distance dabbler myself and thus allowed to say such things). Shallow? Yes! In agreement with most of the Olympic-watching population? Absolutely!! Off on an irrelevant tear about physical aesthetics in the early 21st century? YES!

Sprinters are lean because of a phenomenon called EPOC (exercise physiology is more loaded with acronyms than the military). EPOC stands for Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, and describes a period during which the metabolism stays revved above your base level while recovering from intense (anaerobic) exercise. During this period, your body is metabolizing lactic acid, a by-product of this type of exercise that is responsible in part for the burning sensation in your muscles towards the end of a bout of anaerobic work. The elevated metabolism requires energy (calories), and these extra burned calories, combined with those burned during the anaerobic work itself, are generally speaking GREATER than the calories required during the average session of pure, easier aerobic work. PLUS anaerobic work builds muscle more readily than aerobic work does, and muscle, as we know, looks great and burns extra calories, even at rest.

So if you’re like me and more impressed with the performance and look of the short-distance folks, why are we all emulating the exercise patterns of marathoners? Why don’t we throw in some sprint work and watch our legs and midsections transmogrify into those of a poor man’s Marion Jones or Maurice Green?

So here’s how to do it, in a nutshell: you’ve got to add some intensity to your workout. You’ve got to nudge yourself out of your comfort zone and into a place where your heart rate is really up (over 80% of maximum); your muscles burn a little, and you’re really working to catch your breath. This may take the form of a tough leg workout (see my tip from a couple weeks ago) or a set of five or six 1-2 minute fast intervals during your cardio workout, a tennis or basketball game with an opponent who keeps you running up and down the court all day, even a push or two up a steep hill on your daily jog.

Now remember: you can’t sprint all the time, and you certainly can’t start sprinting tomorrow if the most exercise you’ve gotten this year has been thumb-presses on the remote. You’ve got to build up to it. And once you’re there, you’ve got to be more careful about getting adequate rest, stretching carefully after exercise, and spacing out your workouts so you’re not risking injury. Generally I’d suggest keeping your hard-core anaerobic work down to 2-3 times per week, interspersed with rest days or sessions of steady-state training. But once you get over the initial shock of how tough sprinting can be, it’s really fun. I mean, when was the last time you ran all-out for ANY period of time for ANY reason? And why do 8-year olds do it all the time and the rest of us NEVER do?

Shoot me an email and let me know how it goes for you.

Enjoy the week. 2006 appears to be here to stay--

Andrew

DF Tip #4: As I SAID...

Today I received the following email:

Hey Andrew! Wow, you’re so much smarter than all the other fitness ‘gurus’ out there! I think of you as a cross between Jack LaLanne, Don Rickles, and, well, to be honest, Shakespeare, only more perceptive about the subtleties of human folly. Everyone should train with Andrew at Dynamic Fitness! Now onto my question: could you explain the SAID principle? I think your readers would appreciate that. —BC, Calcutta.

Funny how I randomly chose such a flattering note from the reams of worldwide correspondence I receive daily. Sometimes objective journalism just works out that way!

Ah, yes, the SAID principle: one of the more elegant notions in exercise physiology— also one of the better named. SAID stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands, and, in a nutshell, it says is that whatever stimulus you throw at the body, it will adapt to make that particular activity easier and more efficient.

On one hand it’s a fairly intuitive principle; on the other hand it’s something everyday exercisers forget all the time. For instance, people ask me if walking up a total of a dozen flights of stairs throughout the day is enough to get them "fit." My response is, fit enough to do what? Climb a dozen flights of stairs over the course of a day? Yes. Run a marathon? No. According to SAID, if you want your body to get better at a given activity, you’ve got to do that activity. And ideally you’ve got to do that activity often, and for extended periods. Evidently, practice does indeed make perfect.

So when you’re watching those infomercials about shaping up in four minutes a day using The Thigh-Ab-Ulator, think about it: what adaptation are you asking the body to make with that movement? The answer is simple: you’re asking the body to get better at using the Thigh-Ab-Ulator. Marginally better, at that, since you’re only using it four minutes a day. Will that make you "fit"? Again, what demand are you placing on the body to which it must adapt? The answer is that after a few days, four minutes on the Thigh-Ab-Ulator probably places NO demand on your body at all, meaning the body doesn’t have to make ANY adaptations to get better or more efficient at the motion! Ergo, the Thigh-Ab-Ulator gets demoted to doorstop, and you’re stuck with six more monthly payments of $19.99 plus applicable taxes.

So, ladies and gentlemen, when you’re planning your workouts, please remember SAID: your body, wonderful machine that it is, will adapt to virtually any stimulus you throw at it. But once it has adapted to your exercise program, presto, no more weight loss, no more muscle gain. That’s why almost any exercise program ceases to be effective after a few weeks (usually three or so) unless you add something new to the mix. So if you run three miles a day along the exact same running route for 25 years like my father does, you’ll get good at running those same three miles a day along that same running route—period. And then, like I tell my Dad every time I’m home, you’ll stop improving because there’s nothing new you’re asking your body to do until you throw another stimulus into the mix: try to run it faster, run an extra loop, do an interval or two instead of going steady-state, run it backwards, run it while singing the ‘La Vie En Rose,’ but for heaven’s sake, mix it up! Do that, and more adaptations will follow: more weight loss, muscle tone, heart-lung health, all those wonderful, elusive things we fitness folk seek.

One final caveat about the SAID principle. Your body, in some respects, isn’t all that bright. It will adapt to whatever demand you impose on it, so be careful what those demands are. You don’t get to choose which behaviors your body adapts to and which ones it ignores.

Go to just about any weight room and you’ll see a couple of extreme examples of what I’m talking about: see Günter in the corner, the 286-pound rhino bench pressing in the corner? Of course you do, that’s where the guy lives, 24-7. Well, Günter’s body has adapted to get good at bench pressing and not much else. His anterior shoulder tendons have shortened, his pectorals are as tight as a drum across his chest, his spine is misaligned from all the pushing motion he does, his core musculature is weak around his spine. Sure, Günter can bench press you and me with a couple of anorexic supermodels thrown in, but he probably can’t comb his hair, much less reach that high shelf in his closet or turn his head when he backs the car up. So, is Günter fit?

Fit to bench, that’s for sure. Fit to go on a hike now and then, walk on the beach, play with his kids, enjoy his life? Probably not. Some fitness gurus prescribe programs not dissimilar from the one Günter follows—wreck your body and fitness will follow. By contrast, the ‘functional training model’ assumes you want to make life in this highly adaptable but fallible organism called a Human Body as enjoyable as possible. So we take another approach: do in the gym variations on those things that you want to be able to do more effortlessly in life—reach, stretch, bend, move, lift, twist, play—and life itself will become easier and more enjoyable. That’s the side I’m on.

Have a great week, everyone—
Andrew

DF Tip #3: Without a -- to stand on…

People ask me all the time, "Hey Andrew," they say, "how come you always work legs so hard with your clients, even if building leg strength isn't a priority to them? I mean, what gives?" (they always add the "what gives?"). "I mean, shouldn't you be giving your clients just what they want, and no more? What kind of trainer are you, anyway?"

Actually, no one has ever asked me that. Still, it's a valid question. Consider: unless you're a sprinter, cyclist, or competitive weightlifter, not too many people give a lot of thought to their leg strength. Sure, women are often concerned about toning their legs, but to that end most exercise programs suggest a leisurely regimen of leg extensions, leg curls, and leg-adductors (the seated movement where the exerciser squeezes the thighs together against resistance pads). And men will say, "Nah, I run, I don't need leg work, let's just hit the bench." And that's really it.

Few trainers or programs outlined in SHAPE will prescribe multiple sets of gut-busting variations on the squat, deadlift, and lunge the way I do. And as anyone who's ever done the exercises above will tell you, even the bodyweight-only versions of these moves are killers. Grab a couple of dumbbells in either hand or add an upper-body curl or press to the mix and they're next of kin to the interrogation techniques that George W. wishes he were still allowed to use.

Well, I'm here to tell ya it's not just sadism. I know that squats, deadlifts, and lunges hurt, believe me. I know you get out of breath when you do them, in the same way you get out of breath ascending stairs or steep hills on foot or on a bike (activities which accomplish much the same thing as the moves I'm talking about, for the gym-o-phobics among you). When you're not used to these moves, they can cause cramping in the calves and hamstrings; push it hard on these exercises and you'll get a nice little reminder of it every time you descend the stairs for a week.

But despite these disadvantages, whenever a client returns to me a few days after a hard leg workout, reeling like a newborn calf taking its first tentative steps, stumbling on legs that feel like they've been run over by a cement mixer, a warm feeling fills my heart. Because I know, deep in the marrow of my trainer-bones, that that person's metabolism has been on overdrive for the last few days, repairing the muscle tissue in their lower limbs. And if we keep working out, I know that that additional metabolic burn will become permanent, so that even if their diet remains unchanged, they will lose fat because of the muscle they've built in their legs. After their soreness subsides, climbing stairs, getting out of the car, indeed, any activity involving the legs, will become easier. Their core strength will improve. They will be better at any sport they happen to play. The connective tissues in the ligaments and tendons of their lower body will be stronger and more resistant to injury as they get older. To say nothing of the fact that their legs will just plain look better.

The fact is that working your legs with anaerobic (hard, soreness-inducing exercise) is the fastest way to burn fat that's out there. That's why all those cardio machines you see in the gym have you working your legs and not your brachoradialis. The musculature of your hips and thighs is the largest in your body, including the quadriceps (front of thigh), hamstrings (back of thigh) and glutes (that's your butt), and pushing them to the limit burns bucketloads of calories. Working them together, with multi-joint moves like squats and lunges, rather than separately, as with those useless leg-adductor machines, will elevate the heart rate and give you a peripheral cardiovascular workout as well. There’s evidence too that this type of move creates a generally anabolic (muscle-building) environment in the body, meaning that if you do these moves, they make everything else you do in the gym that much more effective.

That's why unless a client has some injury that prevents hard work in the lower limbs, sooner or later I always shove 'em over to the squat rack. No matter what the goal, you almost can't go wrong working the old pins. Want to lose some fat? Work your legs. Build a solid upper body? Work your legs. Get faster on the tennis court? Work your legs. Strengthen your joints? Work your legs. Develop telekinesis? Work your legs, then trade leg-training advice for enlightenment tips from a seventh-degree swami.

Not a bad return on an investment of a half-hour to forty-five minutes a week. So even if you have no interest in pounding out sets of squats with the brontosauri at Gold's, don’t shy away from Dead Man's Hill on your daily walk. Try to figure out ways of working some stair-climbing into your day. Push it hard up those hills and stairs, get the heart pounding and some sensation in your legs. That burn you feel is fitness gold.

Good luck, everyone.
Andrew

DF Tip #2: Eat up...often!

Welcome to another TIP from Dynamic Fitness. I never received any "cancel" requests, so I'm assuming that all of you are up for more of my holier-than-thou fitness counsel...for those recently added to my list, if you don't want to be included, just send me a "Cancel" in the subject line, I'll take the hint, and you can go on with your lazy, slovenly lives. I mean...er...there'll be no hard feelings.

So: I'm chugging up a steep grade on Runyon Canyon with a client, and the subject of diet comes up. I had just told her smugly that she should be eating SOMETHING every three hours or so -- preferably something with protein and carbs. Go for too long -- that is, until you get that growly-stomach feeing -- and you go into a catabolic state, meaning, your body starts to feed off its own tissues -- and a fair portion of your own MUSCLE tissue -- to keep going.

As she strode mightily up Runyon's steepest incline, gritting her teeth in determination, my client demanded, "WHY?? WHY DOESN'T IT JUST BURN THE BLOODY FAT, FOR GOD'S SAKE??"

I had no easy answer. Yeah, why doesn't it? After all, fat is much more calorie-dense than muscle, and it doesn't serve any purpose except to store energy -- unlike muscles, of course, which help us plant the harvest and hunt big game. Burning muscle for energy seemed like another design flaw in the human body, like shinbones and hangnails.

So I did a little research, and I discovered a phrase I had never heard before: muscle is "metabolically expensive." Having an athletic physique with a few extra muscular contours is like owning a condo in Vail: fun to show off, nice to use now and then, a great way to impress the ladies/gentlemen, but pricey to maintain. If you get into a financial pinch, that condo is the first asset you're going to unload.

Bringing it back to the body, when you get really hungry, your body thinks you're starving. So to fuel itself, the body starts to burn its own non-essential tissues, and naturally enough, it starts with muscle tissue, because keeping it around is a big drain what the body perceives to be limited resources. Fat, after all, requires very little caloric energy to store, and muscles burn tons of calories, whether you're flexing and pumping them or just sitting around on your glutei.

Now, there's a good side to all this, in that you can use your metabolically demanding muscles to serve you in your quest for a leaner body: all you have to do is make sure to get some food in your belly every three hours or so, and your muscle tissue will be spared. With this steady (but gradual!) supply of healthy calories coming in, the body comes out of panic/starvation mode, loosens its Scrooge-like hold on your fat stores and leaves your muscles alone. And because muscle tissue is so metabolically expensive, it will burn more calories for you, even while you sit there, contentedly watching Out of Practice on CBS (which I highly recommend).

So the formula is pretty simple: eat infrequently and the body catabolizes your hard-earned muscle tissue. Eat something healthy every three hours and the body burns the fat and keeps the muscle -- which, in turn, helps the body to burn even more fat.

Hallelujah.

Have a great weekend, everyone--
Andrew

DF Tip #1: Welcome to Dynamic Fitness Tips!

Hey fitness clients, old, new, and 'wha--, who is this guy, and why am I opening this email?' types--

This message is coming to you from Dynamic Fitness and is a free fitness tidbit that I'm sending out to anyone who I suspect might be interested. If you're not, and never want to see this kind of drivel clogging your mailbox again, by all means, let me know: just respond to this email with a "cancel" in the subject line and you're off, free to find your own way through the quagmire of contradictory fitness advice entirely on your own. But it's a jungle out there, so be careful.

For the rest of you, I've been thinking: fitness training can be lonely, doncha think? You hit the gym, by yourself or with your trainer, you do your workout, you leave. Sure, there are other people in the gym, mindlessly repping out hip-adductor movements day after day while Gunter (15th place, Mr. World 1978, plus the "Best Lats" trophy) watches and counts reps, his steroid-addled brain more concerned about what comes after "5" than with his client's deteriorating form. Yes my friends, working out can be a lonely experience.

And that's too bad. Because just about everyone's doing it: going to the gym, getting out and running now and then, even playing foozball once in a while, burning off some serious calories. So why shouldn't it be something we do, if not together, well, with at least some sense of a community? Isn't that how it used to be at those old boxing gyms? You'd have Mitch, the crusty gym owner, his trusty, if punch-drunk sidekick Stan, the weathered veteran Meathead, who'd show you his battle wounds, some of them acquired in the ring, Chucky, the upstart talent, looking to break into the game...that sort of thing. Everyone knew everyone else.

Now I'm not out to throw a big party or anything, I just figured that I'd start up an occasional fitness newsletter for people that I either know or suspect are interested in this sort of thing. As in my training sessions, I hope to be pedantic, sanctimonious and utterly condescending. It works in the gym, why shouldn't it work in print?

To be honest, I'd actually like it to NOT be any of those things, because that's what kills most fitness writing. It's too cheery, it's not connected with any reality I'm familiar with (like "Park your car seven miles away from the door at work!") What I'd like to do is offer tips -- simple little things one can become aware of to improve one's fitness on a day to day basis. I promise that one of the tips will never, ever be "do situps during the commercials while you're watching TV!" I'm not saying DON'T do that, but personally, when I'm watching TV, I'm watching TV. I don't want to have to do my Kegals while they're trying to sell me cell-phone service (stole that joke from a client -- thanks, Casey!).

So after all that, guess what? Your tip this week couldn't be easier. It's this:

Drink water.

That's all. Yes, it's usually in on every list of what to do for better fitness, and we all say to ourselves, yeah, okay, drink water, whatever. And then we ignore it. But this week, don't. Just try it for one week, just this week and see how it affects you. Just start noticing how often you get thirsty, and heed that desire as often as possible by downing a glass of water. I'm not of the "drink till you need a catheter" school, but I am of the "water is the best thing you can drink" school. By changing just that one thing, you'll probably look and feel leaner, because the more you drink, the less you retain. And water retention makes your body softer and less defined. A lot of us go around a little bit dehydrated almost all the time, and that can negatively affect alertness and energy levels. Be especially careful to drink water when you've had alcohol and/or caffeine above and beyond your normal levels--those beverages can be dehydrating. So drink up! And see how you feel.

That's it for this week. Give it a try. And again, for people not interested in my tips -- shoot me an email and let me know.

Have a great week! As ever, check out dynamicfitness.us for more information about training, diet and further fitness activities.

Andrew