Losing absurd amounts of weight in relatively short periods of time used to be thought of as unhealthy. Nowadays, there are many exceptions to the lose 1-2 pounds per week rule. such as:

1. Bariatric Surgery (pre & post)
2. Cardiac Disease (increases risk by not losing weight quickly)
3. Type II Diabetes (can be faster with benefits to glucose tolerance, but sugars must be monitored)

…just to name a few reasons why you might want to safely lose weight faster than 1-2 pounds per week. When your body or your organs depend upon it, it’s a good idea to treat your body well and get the extra weight off as fast as possible.

The trouble with “losing weight too quickly” is the method, not the process. Most people try radical things like extreme dieting with caloric deprivation, dehydration, pills, nutrient-void cleanses, or other posh-type weight loss strategies that infect us through the media.

These methods don’t work. They can help you lose weight quickly, but you’ll often rebound with more weight gain later, or cause a lot of stress to your body in the process. Muscle wasting can take place, as well as cardiac arrhythmia, diarrhea, constipation, sugar-level fluctuations, and many other harmful bodily processes.

Cortisol levels go up when your body is stressed, which adversely affects insulin sensitivity. Your body quickly observes a chronic state of stress, and it protects you with the storage of fat, amongst many other bodily functions, such as alteration in other hormones, and loss/gain of appetite.

Instead, consider what you can do to actually reduce the stress to your body through the weight loss program you choose. Think about the areas of your exercise program that will look/feel different when you hit your goals completely, and the obstacles that lie in your way.

It’s no secret that you’ll have to eat well, choose nutrient-dense foods, and exercise. That said, let’s figure out the finer points of exercise and nutrition that have prevented you from achieving results as fast as you would have expected.

Below, you’ll see that I’ve listed the top 7 Ways To Lose Up To 20 Pounds In The Next 30 Days. It’s extremely important that you understand your body is capable of this, but it’s the minor tweaks and attitude adjustment that will make all the difference.

Method #1: Model ‘Goal-Level’ Intensity Today

If you want to win big, play big.

This is true in so many facets of life, whether you want to earn more income, meet a better partner, or improve your health. “Playing BIG,” so to speak, is all about doing things, right now, in the way you would imagine yourself to when the goal is realized.

For example, if you’re in sales, you might realize that you need to close 20 clients per day in order to realize your goal income. Then, you figure out how many calls it takes you to close a client and multiply. If you need to hire a sales force and write scripts in order to make enough calls, then you do so right away. It’s a way faster way to hit the end goal.

In the case of health, this is best done through cumulative exercise and increased intensity. When you’re in great shape, you naturally put yourself through more in a given workout. In a sense, more “workout pain” hurts less, but only because you’ve felt it before. The unfamiliar is the scariest part.

I’m not telling you to go crazy and end up in emergency level pain from your muscle soreness, to the point that you can’t move. However, I am telling you that on a sale of 0 to 10, where:

0 = no pain/muscle soreness the day after your workout

and

10 out of 10 = emergency level pain, cannot move or function

I’d like you to make sure you’re somewhere between 5 and 7 out of 10 when you’re working out for fat loss. The goal is to create muscle repair and speed up your metabolism in the process. This is done through controlled damage and improved signaling to muscles, thereby getting more muscle involved in every repetition of every set that you do.

Model the intensity you expect yourself to have when you realize your goal and do this today. If you’re intimidated, increase your intensity by 10% every workout until you’re there. Be careful, but be purposeful in your method of losing fat quickly. You’ll be surprised by the result!

If you’d like me to hold your hand and lead you through the intensity-building process and full fat loss effect, I’ve decided to feature a limited-time discount for you right here on my acclaimed Double Edged Fat Loss *LIVE* 8 HD-DVD set.

Method #2:  Supercharge Your Diet & Double Your Fat Loss

You can search the internet high and low, but you’ll rarely find a resource even half as helpful as the article that one of my best friends wrote, Kiwi Chris. I first met Chris at an international Fitness conference in Austin, TX, and I was immediately impressed by his knowledge, along with his incredible spirit for life.

Several months later, Chris ended up staying with my wife and I for 6 weeks doing some specialized rehab for long-standing non-healing issues he was having. Needless to say, you can really get to know someone while living with them for 6 weeks, and I’m proud to introduce you to someone who makes fat loss seem really simple…

Oh, and he’s absolutely hilarious, so you’ll really enjoy reading his article below:

How to Double Your Fat Loss – 9 Easy Tricks to Supercharge ANY Diet

Planned cheat meals are a beautiful thing, and done right, they can be an integral part of rapid fat loss, diet compliance, and being a happy person.

The problem is what happens when the unplanned cheat meals step in.

What am I talking about? Here are three examples most of my clients can relate to.

SCENARIO ONE: You wake up in the morning and walk past your laptop, deciding against your better judgment to “quickly” check emails. Four hours and some serious hypoglycemia later, your hands are shaking as you stagger out of your chair and walk head first into the pantry door. You reach out, dying to eat anything… and your hand lands on… Oreos. A whole packet of double chocolate Oreos. I give it 9 to 1 odds that that packet won’t survive the next two minutes of your life.

SCENARIO TWO: You are meeting your date for an evening cocktail event. Food will be served and your date assures you, some of it will be healthy. You rock up nice and early, looking and feeling amaaaaazing, although a tad bit hungry. Things drag on and on and no food is coming out. Now you are famished, and the feeling amazing has turned to what we call “HANGRY” the so hungry you are angry combo. When food does finally appear, you find out that the “healthy low-fat” solution is in fact a high fructose corn syrup wrap packed with white rice and a tiny bit of something that genetically is chicken but grew up in a cage and is now covered in sugary, “low fat” mayo. Oh boy.

SCENARIO THREE: Enjoying a night of fine dining with your health conscious mates, you expect to eat cleanly and healthy, no cheat meal for you tonight. You order grass fed steak, double serving of vegetables on the side, and ONE glass of red wine. Perfect – you are hungry so you tuck in faster than a sumo wrestler at an all-you-can eat sushi joint. Not so fast Kiwi, you are half way through the meal when you realize the steak has been broiled in and then smothered in a TON of sugary, corn syrup solid teriyaki sauce, that delicious brown sauce is in fact sugar and food coloring, and to your horror, you notice that the veges were sauteed in a refined vegetable oil too. I guess it WAS a cheat meal.

If you can avoid unplanned cheat meals, and keep your diet on the straight and narrow at least 90 percent of the time, you are going to double your chances at getting the body or performance you are looking for.

Ok ok ok you say…Give me solutions KIWI!!

Ok – Here are 9 Easy Tricks I use and tell my athletes to implement from Day 1. Yes, that means you start from today.

Trick Number 1 – If it ain’t there, you CAN’T eat it

Take everything in your kitchen that is bad for you and throw it out or give it away. (if you need help determining what is good or bad, don’t worry, we are covering that in an upcoming article). This trick is so simple but it is SO important that I put it at number 1.

Do it. Now.

Category: control food access

Trick Number 2 – Eat before you dine out, every time

Eat something healthy to take the edge off your hunger before you leave the house to dine out. Every time.

The second you leave your house for a social event you have limited control over what is served, and if you are meeting other people, when it is served.

If you eat a tiny bit prior you can keep the edge off your hunger to avoid caving to craving if great food selections do not present themselves. You are also likely to eat LESS.

My favorite pre dining combo: a handful of raw organic almonds and some organic, grass-fed beef jerky, but even an apple is better than nothing.

Category: control food access

Category: never let yourself get super hungry

Trick Number 3 – Watch the dressings, condiments, and food prep ingredients

Not much point thinking you are eating a healthy meal if you are downing dressings or sauces full of sugar or countless grams of unhealthy fats.

Same goes for how your food was prepared. There are often going to be some oils and sugars in the cooking process, especially eating out, just watch how much and what is used. Coconut oil and olive oil ROCK. For everything else, ditch the oil and sugars and keep the cheat meals planned cheat meals people.

Category: control food access

Trick Number 4 – Eat nutrient dense foods regularly whenever you get hungry

If you find yourself starting to get very hungry, eat a healthy meal while you still have some self-control.

Some intermittent fasting has its uses, and while there are advocates out there for rampant fasting, I am not a big fan of the big fasts for a few reasons: 1) athletic performance (and daily productivity) bomb for me when eating this way when compared to other more regular feeding diets that have a surplus of adequate nutrition (try it without ANY caffeine, I dare you) 2) most importantly it is when super hungry that most serious binges occur, especially with beginners 3) cortisol management. The adrenal/cortisol axis is SO important to fat loss that it deserves its own book… don’t stress your body any more than you have to.

Especially at the start of any new diet, eat enough and regularly to never get super hungry – just make sure it is the good stuff.

For athletes, most especially those with a significant metabolic component to their training, keeping the nutrition coming in and energy going is the key to training hard and recovering quickly.

Then there is the question of energy and more frequent feeding: do your sense of body heat and your energy levels go up after you eat a meal? Coming off the rails is a big problem if you can’t get back on afterwards. Enough said.

Category: never let yourself get super hungry

Category: avoid deficiencies that will impair health or performance

Category: avoid brain confusion for EAT messages

Trick Number 5 – Keep some healthy snacks on hand with you at all times

Life happens. Have a selection of healthy ready to eat choices on hand at all times for those occasions when you are forced to go longer between meals than intended, or are stuck somewhere with only poor food choices (such as an airport)

Some readily portable examples: organic raw nuts, premade grass feed beef or bison in chili (ideally sans legumes) or as jerky, cold meat cuts from home, hard boiled eggs, low salt cans of fish, organic vegetables, organic seeds, organic nuts (I love almonds, macadamias, and walnuts) and if you must, low glycemic fruit (blueberries rock).

Category: never let yourself get super hungry

Trick Number 6 – Cover your nutritional bases, EVERY day

Eat nutrient dense foods from a variety of sources. Nature loves variety, and if you can eat a broad spectrum of all the good stuff daily, you will reduce the likelihood of having any nutrient deficiencies.

While this is great for health, it is also important for dieting. Your brain’s solution when it feels like it is missing nutrition? You get the craving to EAT, even if your caloric needs are already being met.

(This is so important, it is getting its own chapter one day)

Category: avoid brain confusion for EAT messages

Category: avoid deficiencies that will impair health or performance

Trick Number 7 – Get more quality sleep

Remember the comment above about the adrenal/cortisol axis? This might sound weird as a trick to improving diet results, but one thing is for sure, not only does not getting enough sleep mess up your good hormones, if your body is lacking energy, you will feel the pull to find it, somewhere, often from food.

“Fatigue makes cowards of us all” – a comment so true made famous by Patton, Lombardi, and others.

Getting enough REGULAR sleep aids in health, mood, superior hormone levels, a faster metabolism, higher daily activity levels, and general happiness. Put simply

you will find that with enough rest and sleep you will have faster fat loss results, and more energy and will power to keep going for what you want. Stay on the path, mate.

Category: avoid brain confusion for EAT messages

Category: maintain will power

Category: improve hormone states to maximize fat loss

Trick Number 8 – Have a cheat meal!

Yes, schedule it in, and MAKE SURE YOU DO IT.

Pick your favorite “nemesis” foods and for one meal a week, take that puppy down, BIG time.

Knowing you have a cheat meal coming up will keep your will power where it should be on the days when you are supposed to be behaving, which is so important for compliance. If done right it will also reduce cravings for days afterwards.

Having a cheat meal also allow you to enjoy some of the finer things in life while doing all sorts of wonders for fat burning hormones and muscle glycogen.

(There are a lot of tricks and pointers to ensure you are doing this correctly and getting the most out of it. Don’t worry if you have no idea how to do this, I am going to bring in the biggest names in the business to help you guys out).

Want to take it to the next level? Try to avoid fried foods and make sure your cheat meal has NO GLUTEN in it. Trust me, makes a big difference.

Category: maintain will power

Category: avoid brain confusion for EAT messages

Trick Number 9 – Don’t beat yourself up. Face forwards

Sometimes you are going to slip, fall, and pig out on the wrong stuff at the wrong time. Or eat the wrong type of food because there was nothing else available.

It is ok, one unplanned cheat meal is not going to end it all for you. Just make sure you stick to clean eating as often as you can, get back on the rails, and face forwards, positively.

Category: maintain will power

Those are my 9 Tricks – now go for it!

What little tricks do you use to keep your diet and clean eating on track? Let me know on Facebook.

Want a bonus trick that is MAGIC but with a bit more detail? Read on…

Trick Number 10 – Make every healthy meal a sequence of Protein, Good Fats, and Non Starchy Veges… In that order.

This trick, which automatically ensures a superior macro nutrient ratio for fat loss -has outstanding results with everyone who tries it.

1. Protein FIRST. Every meal, start by eating a clean, quality source of protein. What do I mean? (Grass-fed) meat, (non-farmed) fish, free range poultry, clean living or game meats, and free range eggs. Aim for a DAILY intake of 1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight. Yes, I really said that that, and yes, it is harder than it sounds. Break this protein intake over each of your daily meals (3 meals is perfect and 4 is more than enough), and make getting in that quota your priority at every meal.

Yes, it is so important it is going at number 1.

2. Fat SECOND. After you get your real food protein down, ensure you are getting some healthy, quality, FATS at every meal.

If you cook in coconut oil and eat nothing for protein but grass fed meat, wild salmon, anchovies, and sardines, game meats and wild fowl, you are probably good to go without any supplementation whatsoever.

Since this is nearly NO ONE, everyone else needs to balance out their omega 3 to omega 6 ratios. You are aiming for a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio which are our ancestral dietary norms and NOT what is happening with the bulk of the food you eat (you need a LOT more omega 3 and a lot LESS omega 6 to get this balance, trust me). Take down a handful of fish oil with every meal. Work up to 10-50 GRAMS per day. Yes I said that too.

Daily amount as follows:

10 grams if you can see your abs even when sitting, never eat any grain fed meat, have no auto-immune or inflammatory issues, and none of your joints hurt, ever.

50 grams if you are more than 30lbs overweight, any of your joints hurt, or you suffer any form of auto-immune or inflammatory disease. If you are anywhere in between, I recommend you continually build up towards 50 grams until you CAN see your abs, then drop back down to the 10 grams per day level.

Divide your daily intake across your meals equally.

***please check the comments below – new fish oil recommendations have been given.

Trust me on this, it may take some working up to, but the results are outstanding.

What about eating grain fed meat? Avoid it whenever possible, but if you have to, go for the leanest cut you can (the fat on grain fed meat is BAD). PLUS automatic 10 grams of fish oil, every time.

You can also chomp away on almonds, macadamias, Brazil nuts or walnuts, but these can potentially increase your Omega 6 load (macadamias, brazil nuts and macadamias the best of the nuts but remember that ratio) so personally, get the fish oil in first and see how you feel. Any meal that is made up of grass fed meat, wild salmon, anchovies, or sardines, you can halve the fish oil.

3. Veges THIRD. Yes, third. Fill up (keep going until you achieve satiety) with green, nutrient dense veges. Just close out the meal and keep chomping until you are no longer hungry. You will get a TON of micronutrient goodness with very little calories, so eat away! Here are my favorites:

• Spinach
• Kale
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Baby Bok Choy
• Brussel Sprouts
• Cauliflower
• String beans

Just make sure you cycle through the vege choices, and don’t be afraid to add plenty more, variety rocks, and there can be too much of a good thing.

What about carbs you ask?

My answer: What about them?

Limit fruit, eat NO white carbs at all, and only drink sugar free, unsweetened beverages. This means water, tea, black coffee.

Sound extreme? Not really, extreme is forcing our bodies to survive on a diet that is terrible for us. The result, lots and lots of fat and miserable people. Don’t be one of them.

Ancestrally, we didn’t eat any processed carbs, or even a carb heavy diet. Move your body over to this, our more ancestral and evolutionary format for eating and quite simply… prepare to be amazed. The nutrient density of a meal like this alone is a world away from a modern, nutrient starved, about to make you fat and miserable “meal”.

Try this EXACT eating pattern and food choices for EVERY meal for 30 days. If you don’t love me at the end of it… … well, there is always a first time for everything.

This is the Kiwi’s super supplement. He designed it for his Mama:

Method #3:  Increase Intensity By Decreasing Restrictions

Pain signals increase your heart rate, but the sneeky thing about pain signals is that you can’t always feel them. In the case of muscle tissue that has a bunch of knots, restrictions, or scar tissue, there are pain receptors buried within each restriction.

These bad boys are called Type IV mechanoreceptors, and they are there to tell you not to bump into an injury while it is healing. Unfortunately, when you work out just a bit too hard, or you go for a run and get ‘extra’ sore on one leg, you are generally forming restrictions.

The pure nature of working out is that you create micro tears in your muscles, these tears repair, and your muscle grows, or your metabolism rises, depending upon your intended effect.

So, when the ‘minor’ injury turns to ‘moderate’ injury by accident, your body heals with myofascial restriction and/or scar tissue. This is just a ‘bundling’ type effect that takes place in order to protect the area that experienced too much stretch or compression until it is fully healed. However, when the restriction is never released, it stays, and so do those Type IV pressure receptors we were talking about…

Over time, you get used to this minor pull feeling, and you barely even notice it taking place. It’s not until someone goes to massage the muscle that you realize how restricted you are. All the while, there are sub-sensory pain signals being sent to your brain and letting your brain know that there is an injury in this area. Your brain, in turn, sends a signal to block a strong muscle contraction from happening, thereby decreasing the risk of injuring the muscle further.

It’s a smart system, at first, but then it can actually harm your fat loss results.

I recommend you take the time to release the various restrictions your body might have. This is best done through using a foam roll or tennis ball and releasing myofascial restrictions one at a a time. Essentially, you’re just realigning small bits of scar tissue with pressure in a perpendicular direction to your muscle fibers.

This strengthens the original muscle tissue and allows your Type IV pressure receptors to be re-absorbed back into your bloodstream. The sub-sensory pain signals go away, and your muscle recruitment improves.

Recruit more muscle and you can lose more fat.

Because I really care about you, and I want to be sure you get great results, I’ve put together a really special deal for you on my top-selling 10 minute Tissue Release program — Mission Unbreakable:

Method #4: Have a Backup Plan For Busy Days

I often tell my clients that success is best predicted through personal training by the people who make it in on the “bad days;” anyone can exercise when they feel great. However, when timing is tight and you’re feeling tired, that’s when it counts the most.

Overcoming the feeling of laziness, fatigue, etc. is monumental in your success. With that said, sometimes it’s just a time crunch. In this case, I recommend you find a short-burst program that helps you spike your heart rate as high as possible, safely, within a very short duration of time. From a fat loss perspective, it’s becoming apparent that it’s not necessary to exercise for 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or longer in order to lose fat quickly.

For clarification, there are many benefits to longer duration exercise, such as the following:

Improved stress attenuation by your body (reduce overall body stress by spending more time helping your body function at its highest level) Decreased joint pain, by lubricating your joints for more time each day through slow, controlled movement
Habit formation, through dedicating adequate time towards exercise, often throughout the week

And that’s just the beginning. Personally, I feel GREAT when I exercise for at least 30-60 minutes, 4-5x per week. But when it comes to fat loss, I’m able to get equal or better results in 10 minutes or less per workout.

That’s when ‘Exercise Sequencing’ and ‘Compound Movements’ come into play. The more of your body you use with a given exercise, the less time you’ll have to spend ramping up your metabolism. Similarly, when you train in the correct order of exercise, you’re able to get more from each muscle you train, ultimately speeding up your results.

Here are the rules that will help you speed up your weight loss and fat loss goals to an extreme within the next 30 days, while decreasing the amount of time you spend exercising:

1. Lift heavy
2. Train fast, not long (fast-twitch muscle fibers burn up sugars better than slow-twitch)

Use time, not reps as your measure of intensity. For example, how many reps can you get in the next 50 seconds? This is better for extremely fast workouts.

3. Whole body, lower body, trunk, upper extremities, lower extremities burnout
4. Exercise to complete exhaustion, but don’t push further

Follow these 5 rules with your exercise program on “busy days” and watch your results go nuts!

The most important thing you can do is have a plan. On “slow days,” get your full workout in and benefit by all the ways I’ve listed above. On “busy days,” get your crazy fat loss workout in within 10 minutes and spike fat loss even further through this level of alternating intensity.

Make sure to plot out your workouts ahead of time so that you don’t feel pinched on time when you need it most. If you haven’t seen Ab Strength Guide already, I’ve put together my top 5 ten minute fat-blasting workouts, and I’ve made you a ridiculous deal. You can check it out right here:

Method #5: Fat Loss Fibonacci

Recruit, Load, Distribute, Stack. This ensures progression, by the principle of Fat Loss Fibonacci.

Accelerate Your Results: Fat Loss Fibonacci

A Fibonacci number sequence is when you add the two numbers previous together. For example:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21

Fat Loss Fibonacci is when you add the fat loss effect of every portion of every exercise together. It’s a simple formula.

Let’s give a practical example. Let’s say that you do the following 2 exercises, back to back:

1. Squat
2. Lunge

1 Squat + 1 Lunge = 2 exercises.

Now, let’s say you take those same 2 exercises, except you add a movement to exercise #2, and you leave the rest the same.

Squat
Lunge + Press = 2-part exercise
1 Squat + 2-part exercise = 3 exercises.

You get the idea. We can really build a lot more into a lot less time when we learn to add exercises together. Fat loss skyrockets, as does the metabolic effectiveness of every exercise.

Fat Loss Fibonacci wins.

Why am I explaining all this to you instead of asking you to pay for this information?

With complete integrity and modesty intended, I believe this method to be the fastest and healthiest fat loss exercise method in the world today; and I want you to know how you can lose fat at full speed without any more misinformation.

You might be wondering why I’m giving away all of this information for free when I regularly charge thousands of dollars for it in person, at Global Fitness LLC, our private physical therapy and personal training facility. The answer is 3-fold:

1. I became a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Kinesiologist for a reason – I care about people, which means I truly care about you. You are my inspiration, and I take life-satisfaction out of helping people feel and look better. I’m in a unique position to share the intersection of physical therapy and personal training with you to teach your body how to do things its never been capable of doing before. It’s an honor, and I feel privileged every day that I wake up and have this opportunity.
2. Frankly, I’m disgusted with the amount of misinformation in the health industry. Even I’ve felt scammed before by overly convincing marketing tactics and statements that sound like fact. It sucks, and I won’t stand for it.
3. In my experience, the more I share, the more clients I end up with anyway…. which gets back to #1. I feel more satisfied, my business grows, and my family is happy. You’ll see, I’m about to hook you up.

As you can see, Fat Loss Fibonacci is the fastest way to lose fat. Link more exercises together and lose weight more quickly. Every movement counts for a higher metabolic drive with Fat Loss Fibonacci.

Let me break this down and make it simple for you. I’ve put together a program that offers you an incredible deal on losing fat at record speeds, and it can be yours for a heavily discounted price. This program is perfect for you if you’re a beginner who’s looking to progress intensity over time, and you’d like to be able to do your workouts with just an exercise ball and set of dumbbells; plus, the workouts are short, varying from 12 minutes to 35 minutes in duration. Time to set some fat loss records:

Method #6: Sprint (2x)

Move at maximum speed, in all senses of the words. I don’t believe in rapid fat loss as a standalone plan, but I certainly believe that rapid improvements in your physique yield a higher level of motivation and greater commitment to your health goals. After all, if you don’t see immediate results, how will you convince yourself to keep exercising, eating right, or practicing proper mindset routines?

When it comes to crushing fat on your body, sprinting is super effective. By just doing 10 sprints that last between 10-20 seconds each, you can reinvent fat storage patterns on your body in a matter of a few weeks. It’s important to note that you should rest at least one day in between every day that you sprint.

One of the reasons that I love sprinting (outside is very preferable to me) is that it takes relatively no time, excites my body, and drives my motivation through the roof. It’s just one of those things that produce such measurable results with so little effort that you can’t help but notice. This is the reason that interval training became so popular, but I believe the value of sprinting, alone, is often overlooked. Sprint, rest, sprint. It’s as easy as that!

Here’s a typical sprinting protocol that I use on a regular basis on a soccer field nearby my house:

Dynamic Warm up – 5-7 minutes, including high knees, butt kicks, karaoke step, side step swipe with an arm swing, rocker squats, reverse spider lunges, and squat thrusts. Basically, I rotate through each of these exercises, progressing speed as I go through until I reach fatigue and change it up.

Begin Sprinting, as follows:

10 yards x 1, rest 60 seconds
20 yards x 1, rest 60 seconds
30 yards x 8, resting a minimum of 90 seconds (up to 150) in between each sprint

That’s it! Couldn’t be simpler… just run, and run hard.

One important note is that I’ve learned to perform ‘pointed running’ with sprints, meaning that I sprint by landing on my toes, rather than my heels. I learned to do this while wearing Vibram 5 Fingers, which have been a huge impact in my overall running mechanics. I find that these shoes have helped me develop strength in the intrinsic (arch) muscles of my feet, protected my knees, and helped me learn to enjoy sprinting again.

Just to be clear, I’m really not a fan of running, just sprinting. I find running to be super hard on your body, breaks down knees, and tends to create a lot of compression to the lower vertebrae of the spine. While I realize how great it is to have the “healthy habit” of running in your routine, I’ve personally found that it leads to faster deterioration of your body than other forms of exercise. In particular, I’ve noticed that it creates low back pain, knee pain, and a rapid spike in my heart rate when I run. Over 7 miles is generally considered to create joint damage, just fyi, despite it’s great cardiovascular effect.

Sprinting Method #2 – Rapid Fat Loss – Challenge yourself to lose as much fat as you can within a 30 day period, but have a long-term plan to follow so you don’t find yourself experiencing rebound weight gain.

There are a few important considerations when it comes to losing fat at record speeds:

1. Any organ issues that might flare if you are susceptible (kidney stones, gallbladder stones, heart arrhythmias, blood sugar issues, or anything else that your doctor would warn you about if you experienced a rapid change in your BMI, dietary habits, or exercise habits.)
2. Don’t sacrifice muscle for weight loss – make sure you always consume protein, no matter what the plan recommends. There’s a way to do both (i.e. eat an early breakfast, even if it’s a fast day – this will speed up your metabolism and help you sustain your muscle mass)
3. Have a long-term plan to follow this “sprint” period. Find an exercise and nutritional routine that’s totally sustainable for you, long-term, before you ever begin a program geared towards rapid fat loss.
4. Maintain your micronutrient levels during abnormal ‘diet days’ by supplementing with a super high quality multivitamin.
5. Restoration of hormonal levels, at least once per week. Often times, extreme behavior has an effect on the hormonal levels inside your body, so be sure to reward yourself at least once a week with a day of rest and a cheat day in order to restore ‘Leptin’ levels and increase your fat-burning effect.
6. Other than Leptin, be sure to pay attention to levels of ‘Adiponectin’ in order to maximize your fat-burning effect.

Other than that, go at it!

Out of all the rapid fat loss programs I’ve ever seen, I’ve never seen anything compare to Xtreme Fat Loss Diet. I’ve personally seen the testimonials of people who have lost up to 34 pounds in 25 days. It’s crazy! As such, I’ve negotiated a special deal for you to try this program for just $5, as I believe it’s going to be game-changing for you:

If you’d like to see some examples of people who’ve already been successful transforming their bodies with this protocol, you can do right here:

Method #7: Progressive Variety is King

It’s not just enough to exercise. You have to add variety, and you have to advance your skill level all the time in order to continue to see amazing results. This is where most people miss the bus with their workouts. If your goal is to be able to progress weight loss, muscle building, or fat loss, the key is going to be constantly challenging your body in a new way.

Every workout should advance, in some way, on the previous. Here are a few parameters you can use to advance every workout you do and excite extreme fat loss capable of producing up to 20 pounds of weight loss in as little as 30 days:

1. Speed variety (of each movement, with good form)
2. Set variety (sequence of exercises should be changed up, in order to maximize the effect on both small and large muscle groups, even though most workouts will prioritize large muscle groups first.)
3. Exercise modality variety (medicine ball, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbell, etc.)
4. Mode variety (gym vs outdoor sprinting vs bodyweight routines, but try to stay away from cardio machines for rapid fat loss that is sustainable long-term. Cardio machines can produce results, for sure, but they’re not the best choice.)
5. Frequency variety (shock your body by exercising 2 days in a row sometimes and every other day at other times)
6. Intensity variety (how hard you plan to work out with each day, ranging from 40% max to nearly 100%)
7. Duration variety (how long you work out each time, ranging from 5 minutes to 60 minutes)
8. Skill level advancement (level of difficulty of each exercise needs to progress all the time, adding movements together and challenging your muscles to stabilize your body in new and innovative ways while driving a higher metabolic cost of each exercise)

Make sure you’re always changing things up. Some workouts should be maintenance workouts, and most workouts should be progressive. When it comes to rapid fat loss in 30 days, every workout needs to progress on the previous.

This is the main principle I use in the development of every program I design, and it’s the very principle that makes Workout Builder such a phenomenal tool to constantly improve your results. I’ve decided to make you a no-brainer offer and give you access to Workout Builder for FREE, but you have to promise me that you’re going to hit your goal and then comment up here, ok?:

1. Workout Efficacy
2. Recovery Periods
3. Nutritional Strategy

In order to build the most efficacious workout possible, you’ll need to customize the workout to your specific needs.  Think about your body type (more endurance or sprinter), what’s worked for you in the past (swimming, weights, etc.), and how much time you have to offer.  As closely as possible, design a workout program that will meet your needs.  Here are a few examples of workout customizations that are possible based upon answers to the questions above:

Example #1: Endurance-based man who likes to swim but has lost weight before while doing sprinting and lifting weights.

Dr. Kareem’s Recommendations: Mix it up to lose fat.  Fat loss is about shocking your body, over and over again, until it molds itself into a leaner, more capable version of yourself.  Sprinters get leaner, and they get there faster.  There’s a reason for this.  Short duration, high intensity workouts will serve you perfectly.

Example #2: Endurance-based woman who only has a little bit of time, but has seen success by doing things like cardio or other endurance-based activities that she no longer has time to do.  Unfortunately, whenever she’s lifted weights in the past, she’s felt like she was bulking up, rather than trimming down.

Dr. Kareem’s Recommendations: This is a really common, and valid concern.  Instead of thinking about endurance-based activities like cardio as opposite from ‘heavy’ lifting, consider the alternative.  What about contrasting endurance-based activities from sprint-based activities that use very little or no weight.

When you workout with lighter weights and increase your rep range, whether you do this by time with interval-based training, or by reps, you naturally build more muscle fibers that are specific to muscular endurance.  However, when you do this at a very fast pace, or you add sprints, you bias the muscle fibers to the ones that consume sugar, even though you’re not putting on size.  Therein lies the answer:  Sprint, but stick to lighter weights and higher rep ranges.

Instead of thinking about your workout, or a particular exercise, I’d strongly suggest that you consider the impact of the rest of your day, and your days off.  It’s not a matter of burning calories in the gym that will make the difference for you.  Instead, it’s a decision to burn fat all the time.

Calories In – Calories Out = Calories For The Day
3500 calories = 1 pound

So, let’s consider two scenarios:

Workout #1: Burn 350 calories in a 30 minute workout, either on a treadmill or doing circuit training, for example.

Workout #2: Burn 300 calories in a 30 minute workout, interval training with weights.

Obviously, Workout #1 wins by 50 calories, right?

Wrong.  In point of fact, workout #2 may burn 2-9x more calories than workout #1, although it may take up to 72 hours to finish counting the calories burned.  In other words, Workout #2 will temporarily raise your metabolic rate; your body will burn more calories for every day its ‘recovering’ from a workout of this type.

With workout #1, when you leave the gym, you’re done burning calories.  With workout #2, you leave the gym and burn even more calories.

Recovery periods are as important as the workouts themselves.  Perhaps the most well-spoken on this topic is Tim Ferriss, from the 4 Hour Body.  He talks about using the concept of Minimum Effective Dose (MED), taken from pharmacology, and applying it to exercise.  This is, in fact, what I’ve been focused on for a long time, but he’s hit the nail on the head in his description.

You see, when you do the proper exercises, and you sequence them properly, your body requires time to heal.  This is how torn muscle fibers repair themselves, lactic acid is taken from the muscles and absorbed back into your normal circulation, and your body seeks guidance through nutrition.  From a nutritional standpoint, during this healing time, you can do one of four things:

1. Increase your caloric intake substantially, often times telling your body you’re ready to build muscle.
2. Increase your caloric intake modestly, igniting a fat-burning state in your whole body.
3. Maintain your caloric intake, slowly sending your body into starvation mode.
4. Lower your caloric intake substantially, ultimately destroying your fat loss potential.

Let’s take it one step further – Nutritional strategy, not just calories.

From a nutritional standpoint, the fastest way to lose fat is to create a raging metabolism.  So, it stands to argue we should eat anything that helps us build muscle, affecting our muscle to fat ratio (muscle:fat), or that signals our bodies to speed up.  With the simplest logic, we need to consider what the human body was made for.  Our bodies were designed to be able to eat animals in the wild, leaves from the wildlife around, fruits and vegetables, and possibly beans/sprouts.

If we were to just eliminate everything else besides the list you see above, we’d lean out instantly.  Fat would melt away, and our bodies would prepare themselves for intense physical activity.  For a lot of people, this just seems like too much… or too much to ask.  I get it… there are A LOT of temptations out there, and I fall victim to them just as quickly and easily as you fall.

It’s a constant struggle, or it’s something you can see from another angle.  Several years ago, I learned to view my food as an energy source, and I totally shifted my nutritional strategy.  Instead of seeing food as a reward, I began to view food as a chance to feel great.  This totally changed my perspective.

Now, when I choose a food that’s not so good for me, I see the energy crash to come.  Sure, it takes away a small amount of the pleasure, but not really that much.  When I don’t care about my energy level, and I’m feeling like eating pizza or Skittles or something else, I go for it.

On the other hand, when it makes more sense to second guess myself, this perspective makes all the difference.

The take home for this is that I’d like you to shift your focus with food.  Consider it’s effect on you, and you may just find yourself choosing other foods.  Then, make sure to give yourself regular breaks, or cheat days, where you can be human and fall victim to your temptations.  If this happens, look at it as a cheat day, rather than a lack of self-discipline.  You’ll be much happier.

From an exercise perspective, consider what’s going to have the greatest effect with the least amount of time.  Do what your body is not used to, and watch your results explode.  Decide you’re going to rest in between workouts, and make sure you do.  Shock your body every time, and then let it rest.

Your body can and will morph.  It’s about consistent, and strategic effort.

If we make things really simple, here’s how it works:

1. Pain medication blocks the nerve signal that is letting you know something is wrong.
2. Pain relief comes from fixing whatever is wrong, but oftentimes this is difficult to do when you’re in so much pain and can hardly get anything accomplished.

Pain medication is great if you simply cannot function without it, or you just underwent something traumatic like surgery and there’s no physiological reason to be in pain outside of this direct trauma and now you’re sore. In other words, the pain is not protecting you in any way, because you know to be careful in this area, and it’s only temporary.

Pain medication works through various mechanisms such as hormonal and neurotransmitter releases, or even as extreme as triggering the opiod mechanism in our bodies, which is 1000x more powerful than morphine. In all cases, there is an increase use of our livers to filter this toxin from our bodies, and our bodies are smart enough to stop producing pain relief on their own, after awhile, when they know it’s being supplemented.

The biggest trouble with pain medications over time is that our bodies will adapt, and our pain tolerances will become lower. It’s really important to understand that if you choose to use pain medication for anything outside of really acute pain, do so with caution. It’s best to “use” pain medication, in the sense that you’re using it to buy you a window to exercise and fix the problem.

Once you begin to observe this philosophy for pain relief, you’re planning to actually heal. Now, it’s time to start figuring out the root cause of your pain, and how you’re going to plan to eliminate it…

Identify The Root Cause Of Your Pain:

This is most difficult if you’ve had a ton of issues over the years, and you’re not even sure when your body started to fall apart, but I want you to think through this, anyway, and get as close as you can. Your body began a process of self-deterioration as a result of a disease process, or an internal conflict that put your body into a process of self-destruction.

This is hard to wrap your head around, I know, but think about this from a logical perspective. If there wasn’t one major trauma to your body that totally changed the game and your body has never been the same since, or there’s no insidious process taking place that’s slowly eating away at your organs, then why are you in so much pain?

Your body is trying to tell you something. It’s explaining to you that something is wrong, and it’s asking for your attention. Wait long enough, and it will demand your attention. That’s what I’m here for… to teach you how to communicate back and ask the right questions, while you listen for answers.

Communicate With Your Body & Learn What’s Holding You Back:

Communication with your body is through a very simple experimentation process, provided that you’re already seeking proper medical care. If you were to come into my office and get an evaluation, I’d ask you specific questions as they relate to your injury. Here’s a list of some of those questions:

1. Why are you here right now? What’s causing you discomfort of some kind?
2. How long has this been going on?
3. How intense is it?
   On a scale of 0 to 10, where:
   0 = no pain whatsoever
   10 = worst pain imaginable

   How intense is your pain right now?

4. How would you describer your pain, if you had to select from one or more of the following words:
   

   Sharp, shooting	Deep
   Sharp, but stays in one place	Numb
   Dull and achy	Electrical/Shooting
   Superficial (close to skin)	Throbbing or Pulsating
   Cold	Hot

5. What increases your pain/symptom?
6. What decreases your pain/symptom? In other words, what makes it feel better?
7. Have you had any medical exams performed, such as a doctor’s visit, X-Ray, MRI, etc.?
8. Do you have any allergies that might affect your treatment? Or any other special considerations?

Once you begin to gather this data, you can start to find the best path to pain relief, and reverse engineer the process to get ultimate relief.

I’d like you to take the time to answer each question above on a separate piece of paper, or in the comments section below. When 150 people comment, I’ll randomly be selecting people who comment as ‘case studies’ and demonstrate some of the possibilities for optimum treatment and outcomes.

Good luck!

Muscle building exercise theories vary from emphasizing only one muscle group per day or per workout, all the way to doing Turkish Get-Ups as your entire program. I’ve heard it all, and there’s merit in ‘almost’ all of it. The fact is, stress your muscles and they will grow; ‘stressing’ them means that you are taking them just past their failure point, and gaining either:

1. Muscular endurance or
2. Muscular strength

More muscle is your natural adaptation response when you take muscle just past it’s physiological threshold. The question is between muscular endurance (slow twitch muscle fibers) and muscular strength (medium and fast twitch muscle fibers.)

Generally speaking, if you perform greater than 8 reps of an exercise, you’re in the muscular endurance zone. There are plenty of exceptions to this when it comes to burnout sets, synergistic sets, and a bunch of other things that sound complicated but really are not. We’ll talk more about those in a moment…

When you want to build muscular strength, you’ll need to keep your repetitions low (8 or less), and keep your rest breaks long (2-5 minutes before repeating this muscle group.) By forcing your muscle to quickly and fully exert itself a few times until it is exhausted, your body identifies that you were attempting to lift something too heavy, and it grows bigger muscles to help you get it the next time. In other words, it pulls the quickest energy source, sugar, and demands energy from it right away. When it runs out, your body builds more sugar-consuming muscle fibers so that you can lift more weight the next time.

On the other hand, by repeatedly being able to do something, but running out of gas after 25 or 30 repetitions, your body identifies that it needs to get better at ‘pacing’ itself, so it builds more muscle fibers that thrive on oxygen; this way, your body can stop your muscle from ‘getting out of breath’ for awhile longer.

• Muscular endurance is great for running marathons.
  • These are slow-twitch muscle fibers.
• Muscular strength is great for ‘building muscle.’
  • These are fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Converting Muscle Fiber Type:

So, if the goal is to pack on some extra muscle, you’re going to need to either work with the muscle fibers you’ve got, or convert as many of them over to medium twitch as possible. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about the number of fast-twitch muscle fibers you have, although you may want to pick your parents better next time

Slow muscle fibers (endurance) can be converted to medium (consumes both energy sources, oxygen and sugar), and fast twitch (sugar consumers) can also be converted to medium.

Converting fast-twitch muscle fibers to medium twitch is never a good idea if your goal is to get lean or build muscle.
It’s very hard to switch back.

As a result, you’ll want to always incorporate some fast-paced strength training as a part of your workout program, independent of the periodization phase you are following. Even part of a workout every 2 weeks is enough to maintain muscle fiber type.

Conversely, once you change muscle fiber type over from slow-twitch to medium-twitch, do your best to preserve this metamorphosis. Continue this form of training for at least six weeks to stabilize the switch.

Preservation of Muscle Fiber Type:

This is where things can really take off and start to accelerate your results. Instead of looking at ‘burnout’ sets as an opportunity to burn everything ‘left’ in your muscle, look at them as an opportunity to preserve fast and medium-twitch muscle fibers. So, sprint through these reps, cleanly keeping form, and stop when you slow down.

Pretty simple, huh?

Exceptions, Muscle Building Secrets, & Set Variety:

The rules listed above are correct, but with any good science, we learn of new and innovative ways to produce results. Then, we do our best to explain them with new areas of research. As a clinical Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), it’s my job to observe what’s happening clinically, read any studies that support this, or convey my findings for others to start performing the studies. Furthermore, I believe it’s my job to discover new methods.

In my opinion, research is lacking in most of the exceptions listed below, or it could at least be done much better to offer scientific proof. Many of these techniques I’ve borrowed from others’ ideas, and some of them I’ve created on my own. From the training floor, we know these work:

1. Reciprocal Inhibition Supersets & Giant Sets
   

   Reciprocal Inhibition is the concept that suggests when you use one muscle group, the neurological signal to the opposite muscle group is turned off, temporarily. So, in the case of wanting to exert as much effort as possible through a muscle contraction, it stands to argue that following every ‘strength’ exercise, you can use the opposite muscle group to ‘turn-off’ the signal to the muscle you have just worked. Thereby, you’ll get more from each of the following sets.

   Superset Example: Biceps Curls (strength set) x 6 reps, followed by Assisted Dips x 25 reps as your rest period, then repeating Biceps Curls.

2. Angular Supersets & Giant Sets
   

   Angular supersets (2 exercises back to back) and Giant Sets (3-5 exercises in a row, without rest) are extremely useful for muscle groups that have multiple actions or a large variety of muscle fiber direction. For example, your pecs have three muscle actions: internally rotate shoulder/arm, aDduct your shoulder/arm, and flex your shoulder/arm in front of you.

   Each muscle action has corresponding muscle fibers that are directionally-oriented such that when they shorten, the muscle action is performed. So, there are certain positions that work well to get almost every muscle fiber, but they often miss others at the same time.

   Likewise, other exercises are really only meant for one section of one action of a muscle, like Bench Press. This is really only doing a good job of getting the middle and outside regions of your pec, but not necessarily the upper, lower, or inner.

   Angular supersets and giant sets can be used to get the ‘missing’ sections of the muscle from an exercise, thereby increasing the number of reps you’re doing, but not necessarily for the ‘missing’ muscle areas.

3. Synergistic Supersets & Giant Sets
   

   Synergistic muscle groups are muscle groups that work together to perform a common movement. An easy example to envision would be your lats (on your back) and biceps. In order to perform a pull up, you have to use your lats to pull yourself up, but your elbows are bending at the same time, so that’s your biceps. These muscles are working together, or synergistically.

   Since it’s very difficult to do a strength-based pull up set without getting your biceps involved, anyway, it makes sense to finish off the work you’ve been doing. So, biceps, and related muscles, are next in line, and without a rest break. Cumulatively, this adds up to more than 8 reps for your biceps (say 6 pull ups + 6 biceps curls = 12 reps for your biceps.)

   On other days, you’ll want to work your biceps first, even though you’ll sacrifice pull up strength. This way, you can hit a lower number of overall reps and cause faster muscle growth to take place.

   This type of set is important and relative for all closed-chain exercises, or exercises that look like squats, push ups, pull ups, and lunges; exercises where your hands or feet are fixed and your body is moving towards them.

4. Pyramid and Reverse Pyramid Sets
   

   This is where you start with a single rep of an exercise or movement, and then you do two reps, then three, etc. Often times, the rest breaks are minimal, or you are doing 2 or 3 exercises in a row before proceeding to the next rep range.

   Naturally, you are doing many more cumulative reps than 3 sets of 8 reps, but you are allowing short rest breaks in between. This requires both endurance and strength, so it’s beneficial for medium-twitch muscle fibers more than anything else.

5. “Twitch” Sets
   

   “Twitch” Sets are used for purposeful selection of movement speed for the targeting a particular muscle fiber type. In other words, this is another form of muscle balancing, in that you are specifically targeting all muscle fibers your ‘strength’ program might be missing. So you’re taking time out to work on the ‘rest’ of your muscle by working muscular endurance back into the picture, but only for a portion of your workout.

   Here, you are generally using these 3 speeds:

   1. Superslow Method – 10 seconds, both directions
   2. Normal Speed – 2 seconds concentric, 1 second isometric, 4 seconds eccentric
   3. Sprint Sets – as fast as you can go, cleanly and with good form
6. Power-based Movements
   

   Power-based movements are incredible for building strength, especially functional strength that requires the use of your core to succeed with the movement. By slowly loading your muscle (eccentrically) and then exploding against gravity (concentrically), you are teaching your muscle how to generate massive amounts of work in a very short period of time.

   This is great for building muscle, but it comes with some inherent risk. If you are not an athlete and you’re not doing this for sport, it’s generally better to stay in the higher rep range and decrease your weight significantly. Aim for 12-15 reps, and sacrifice a bit of speed in muscle development for safety. You are already biasing your fastest-twitch fibers, so you’re good to go.

   Likewise, certain muscles in your body aren’t meant to get huge. For example, movements that require back stability are often, at least in part, endurance-based movements. For example, power-based pull ups are functional to do at a higher rep range, as this is pulling your bodyweight quickly. Think about this functionally — do you really ever have to pull more than your bodyweight quickly? If you do, you should train lower reps, but if you don’t, you have your answer.

7. Plyometrics for the Non-Athlete
   

   Plyometrics are bodyweight exercises that work on reaction speed and muscle timing. Muscle timing, in this sense, is the ability to fire opposite muscle phases, back and forth, as quickly as possible. For example, as you load your quads eccentrically when you land from a jump, how quickly can you get back off the ground, or use your quads concentrically?

   The faster you can change the phase of muscle contraction, the more you are biasing the fastest-twitch muscle fibers that you have. The goal in plyometrics is to run out of steam quickly, in just a few reps, so you are only utilizing one muscle fiber type when you selectively recruit them.

   This is amazing for power and athletic development, but there’s another hidden benefit here: Joint Stability.

   Joint stability increases as you train plyometrically, as there are many moments when your muscles are just a tad late, and your ligaments and capsules take a small, but repeated stretch. In time, they respond by strengthening, and being able to withstand more. The end result is improved joint stability.

   In the non-athlete, there’s no reason to risk injury by going absolutely as fast as you can, which would lower the number of repetitions you’d do. So, I usually recommend that you aim for 8-12 reps if you are not taking on this risk for increased performance for sport. Athletes are very well accustomed to taking on a controlled amount of risk for their sport, and they are also well adept at getting injured. If you’re just looking to build muscle or get lean, there’s no point in getting hurt…

8. Tonic Muscle Groups
   

   Your ‘true core’ is comprised of a different type of muscle tissue than other muscles in your body. These muscles have the job of stabilizing your spine and pelvis, so they need to be able to work at all times, instead of turning on and off, depending upon the action you need to perform.

   ‘Tonic’ muscles are postural, or ‘core’ muscles, while ‘Phasic’ muscles are reach and grab type muscles, that turn on and off repeatedly, and do so well, but they cannot sustain a maximal contraction for more than 10 seconds.

   Your tonic muscles are:

   1. Internal Oblique
   2. External Oblique
   3. Transversus Abdominus
   4. Multifidus
   5. Psoas
   6. …and depending on the source you read, Quadratus Lumborum

   These muscles should be trained with all phases of muscle contractions, and at all numbers of repetitions. In the case of isometrics (like a plank), work on building as much time as you can without losing form. This is the most functional way to train your ‘tonic’ musculature.

9. Postural Phasic Muscles
   

   As mentioned above, ‘Phasic’ muscles are your reach and grab muscles, as they do a great of turning on and off. Examples here might include your delts, biceps, triceps, quads, etc.

   However, what about muscles like your lats, pecs, erector spinae, rotator cuff, etc.?

   In these cases, your muscles are used throughout the day, but they don’t have the characteristic of tonic muscles that allow them to contract nonstop. Instead, they need to have incredible levels of muscular endurance in order to perform in real life. Simultaneously, because they are so important in daily life, they require adequate strength to perform.

   Postural Phasic Muscles should be trained both high repetitions and low repetitions, but low always comes first (8 or less). You can alternate days, or you can choose to always superset with high rep based, multiple speed-based exercises.

10. Functionally-Based Exercises
    

    At the end of the day, we’re talking about exceptions that have been tested and implemented to adapt to functional demands of daily living. This includes movements that require power, alternating motions, quick muscle recovery, or prolonged holding of posture or position. There are all sorts of functions of muscles that take place outside of the gym.

    If you can think of an activity that you currently do as a part of your daily living, albeit your career or at home, and there isn’t an exercise in your routine that specifically addresses this issue, you need to add that movement to your program and train it for muscular endurance. Equally important is to add any strength-based movements to your routine that simulate activities that require you to have strength.

    For example, an endurance-based daily activity you may perform:

    Cleaning the cabinets – overhead position, prolonged time period holding core in this position without arching spine, simultaneously lifting moderately-weighted objects from above.

    A strength-based example might be:

    Landscaping. Jumping into and out of the truck to grab supplies, up to 12 times per day. In this case, that sort of propulsion-based movement that requires coordination between your upper and lower body for jumping into the truck would belong in your exercise program, but for reps, and with specific form cues. You’d do less reps of this, because you only really need to be able to do it 1-3x every time its asked of you.

You’ll often hear conflicting views on fat loss. Some people will claim that the only way to lose fat is to build muscle and affect your muscle to fat ratio (muscle:fat); others will insist that it’s a matter of alternating intensities and high repetition-based exercise.

I’d like to put this fire out, once and for all, and then talk about the newest discovery I’ve seen in fat loss: Fat Loss Metamorphosis

The easiest way to understand if you should concentrate on building muscle or doing high rep-based exercises is to ask yourself the following question:

“Am I a ‘skinny-fat person’ or am I just overweight?”

If you are thin, but you have high body fat percentage, it’s a solid bet that you’ll need to build muscle to see a demonstrable fat loss result. You’ve probably tried dieting, eaten less calories, and done tons of cardio. Unfortunately, your metabolism has fallen as your body fat percentage has stayed about the same while your muscle dwindled away.

In order to lose fat, you’ll need to first prioritize your metabolism. Build muscle to lose fat, and watch it melt much faster.

Example two: You are just plain overweight. In this case, your body is well-adapted to carrying the extra weight, you’re fairly strong already, but your body hasn’t adapted well to fast-paced movements and repetition. This is where interval-based training comes in really handy.

On the topic of interval-based training, please don’t limit yourself to training only on a cardio machine or on a walk/run outside when interval training. Instead, consider following this specific sequence of exercises, alternating high and low intensity with each one and then changing the order:

1. Squat
2. Push
3. Lunge/Bridge
4. Pull
5. Plank

On Day #2, for example, this would become:

1. Push
2. Lunge/Bridge
3. Pull
4. Plank
5. Squat

Thus, you’d always be alternating the high intensity muscle groups with each workout.

For a great example of a Giant Set that follows this format, please check out the first video that comes up on this page:

Fat Loss Rehab Videos

You’ll notice that we need to adjust the intensity with each exercise in order to sustain energy output. The key is to go slower on your low intervals, drop the weight dramatically, but keep moving. You’re not trying to reduce your heart rate, necessarily, but you are trying to reduce your respiratory rate as much as possible.

Think about recovering your breath on every other exercise, and then sprinting. By pushing hard and then going easy, you’re naturally building an interval-based workout program, but your exercises are much more dynamic and practical.

Enter Fat Loss Metamorphosis…

Fat Loss Metamorphosis is a specific-training process I’ve been experimenting with, through which you purposely periodize your program to change your point of emphasis and ‘shock’ your body even further. Allow me to explain…

Instead of saying, “Well, I guess I’m a skinny fat person, so I have to do muscle building exercises to lose fat,” you’d say something like this:

“Since I’m skinny-fat, I’m going to trick my body into thinking it’s building muscle, and then shave fat off every time I sense growth.”

In the second example, your program becomes periodized around intensity-alternation based fat loss, with intervals. However, in order to get to this point, you undergo a short period of intensive muscle building, followed by alternating workouts.

Let’s chart this out:

• Name: Jenny
• Age: 32 years
• Gender: Female
• Weight: 125 pounds
• Height: 5′ 5″
• Bodyfat %: 32%

Obviously, we’ve got a problem. The only way to raise Jenny’s metabolism is by building a bit more muscle. However, we’re only going to prioritize ‘muscle building’ for the first 6 weeks, instead of 16. Here’s how we can periodize Jenny’s program with the use of the Fat Loss Metamorphosis concept:

1. Weeks 1-6: Build Muscle (4-5 days/week)
2. Weeks 7-12: Alternate Interval-Based Workout & Muscle Building Workouts x 2 each/week (4 total workouts per week)
3. Weeks 13-16: Alternate interval-based workouts for one week, and then muscle building workouts for the next week. (4 workouts per week)

Phase I is pretty straightforward. Work on your priority.

Phase II is where we mix things up a bit… instead of switching goals entirely, we’re not alternating. This is providing a ‘muscle growth stimulus’ every other workout to enhance testosterone production, growth hormone production, and the initiation of muscle repair. While the muscle is repairing, we are challenging it with high-intensity, high rep-based exercises that hit it from all different angles and force an increase in lactic-acid production, but relative to a lesser amount of trauma to the muscle. Instead, lactic-acid production is happening by reaching your whole body VO2 max, or maximum oxygen uptake.

Phase III we change things up again and really hone in on what’s possible through an entire week of interval-based training. Your bodyfat sheds like crazy, but then you pump yourself up for another week of results by resuming your normal muscle building activity every other week. In this case, your body is constantly confused, so it grows muscle and leans out at the same time.

3 Phases to Fat Loss Metamorphosis.

It’s yours for the taking.

Please watch the video above and then click the link below. I have a HUGE gift for you on the other side

Ok, so I see from a marketing perspective why we might want to talk about one issue at a time, but I find this to be misleading. In reality, your body wants to achieve all goals at once, and it’s ready to create massive change. Improving health, as far as your body is concerned, is just about improving your health. It’s not about working on one goal at a time.

Granted, it’s sometimes faster to identify and work through one issue at a time, in an effort to sustain your efforts and minimize time output. However, I believe this should all be placed on a timeline for your continuum of health. You may need to get out of pain in order to enhance nerve signals to your muscles, but that’s part of your fat loss or muscle building program. Enhancing signal strength enhances both fat loss and muscle building, so it makes sense to emphasize this first.

Let’s just be careful not to lose sight of what’s most important: Your end goal.

Today, I have an interesting thought-exercise for you, and I’d like you to comment below with your answer.

Thought-Exercise: What is the most logical way for me to get in shape
and achieve my health goals?

Here’s an example case study of one of my personal situation, so that it’ll make more sense:

  Age: 23 year old male
  Height: 5′ 8″
  Starting Weight and Body fat: 203 pounds, 26% body fat
  Goal Weight and Body fat: 169 pounds, 9% body fat
  Starting Pain Level: 8/10, across most joints in body
  End Pain Level: 0/10, everywhere.
  Desired timeframe: 6 months or less

Logically, it would be difficult for me to lose weight until I can tolerate at least 20 minutes of intense exercise 4 days per week. So, I’ll have to address pain first. Here are my options:

1. Surgery – major delay on goal attenuation, and possibility of long-standing pain related to surgical incision.

2. Intensive Rehabilitation – 3-4 days/week, 1 hour per session, which will consume all of my time as a grad student that has major work requirements for school.

3. Muscle Balancing & Fat Loss Program – integration into workouts, while doing exercises I can tolerate, and building endurance at the same time. Granted, not super effective fat loss and weight loss exercises, but worthwhile, nonetheless.

It became obvious that #3 was the only reasonable solution for this phase of my goal achievement process.

So, this is where my timeline had to begin. At first, I had to prioritize muscle balancing, in order to be able to tolerate greater loads with every weight I lifted, unless I was going to increase pain around my joints. Once you hear this, it seems logical, but sometimes it’s difficult to see the forest for the trees.

Next, I would need to phase into progressively more intense exercise, so it was really important that I started ‘Exercise Tolerance Training’ or training my VO2 max to be higher. My VO2 max, as a reminder, is the maximum oxygen uptake my body can have before it starts to produce boatloads of lactic acid, ultimately killing my energy for the rest of my workout.

Cardio-specific training, in the form of alternating days with Target Heart Rate Training and Interval Training, became a great choice.

Now, my program was beginning to develop, and my timeline looked something like this:

Make sense?

How would your timeline look?

Make sure to leave your own personal case study below in the comments section, and I’ll help you critique it for you over the next several days to weeks be replying to your comments. If you can help critique someone else’s timeline, I’ll be sure to prioritize yours.

Have you suffered from low back pain?

If so, did you truly fix the issue, or did you ‘just’ get out of pain?

It’s amazing to find out just how many people expect to have pain at least 1-3x per year because of an ‘old back injury.’  I’ve got news for you – that injury is there all the time, and it’s stopping you from getting in great shape.  In fact, you’re accepting less from your body than you should.

Also, it’s worth noting that any low back pain is going to force you to ‘inhibit’ or ‘turn-off’ most of your muscles – the end result:  You’ll get far less from every exercise you do.

If you’re able to get out of pain, and you don’t have to watch what you do for most of the year, you should be able to feel that way all the time.  Instead, you might always be worried that you’re going to do something that will “throw your back out” again.  That’s no way to live.

Let’s talk about what happens when you “throw your back out.”  There are really only 5 possibilities:

1. Herniated Disc – typically associated with pain/numbness down one/both legs, relief with backwards bending, standing, and walking.  You’ll typically have pain with  coughing, laughing, sneezing, bending, twisting, and lifting.

2. Stenosis Flare-up - this is extremely rare unless you are 55 years or older, and it’s a disorder of narrowing canals where your nerve roots exit from your spine. Basically, because there’s less room for the nerve to begin with, pulling a muscle or ligament can create swelling in this area, which further irritates the nerve root, causing pain down one/both legs.  In this case, you’ll typically find relief by forwardbending, sitting, or riding a bike.  Standing, walking and backwards bending tend to cause more pain.

3. Stuck Facet Joint – this is the most common of them all, as it tends to happen quickly, take a week or so to “resolve” as your spinal column adjusts, and then the pain goes away. Imagine two of your vertebrae ‘kinked’ on one another, as if you’re bending to the side, but your body remains straight.  Now, your body tries to keep you upright, so it starts side-bending other spinal segments in the opposite direction to keep you upright.  In reality, what you need to do is ‘unkink’ the problematic segment and relieve your pain altogether.  This type of injury tends to cause you to deviate to one side when forward or backward bending, and you’ll often find that you’re more comfortable if you slightly rotate your trunk to the left or right, instead of facing forward all the time.  It’s hard to find a comfortable position unless you sit/stand, or lay slightly rotated or in an awkward position.

4. Muscle Strain/Sprain – this is an acute injury, and you’ll know it.  It’s often associated with a ‘burning’ sensation when the injury first happens and blood rushes to the area, is clearly identified to have associated pain with movement, and stretch. It’ll feel like any other muscle you’ve ever strained, in that contracting or lengthening the muscle causes pain.  Since most muscles on your back either help you extend or rotate your trunk, these movements tend to be the most painful.

5. SI Joint Pain – this is pain where your pelvis and spine meet, or that radiates out to the side of your hip, deep in your buttocks, or occasionally in the groin.  Rarely, you’ll feel pain in the front of your mid-thigh when you have an SI joint disorder.  Movements that cause irritation of this injury are transition movements.  It tends to hurt when going from laying to sitting, sitting to standing, or standing quietly to walking.  Generally speaking, you’ll want to repeatedly twist your hips or crack your back when you have this, but the real goal will be to ‘untwist’ your pelvis or ‘derotate’ your sacrum.  This responds well to a figure-4 stretch for your piriformis, posterior pelvic tilts, and balance-oriented exercises like balance board squats, etc. It tends to subside when you’re in one position for awhile, but it sucks when you go to move.

Now, let’s talk about what happens when you truly resolve a back issue, instead of just masking it with postural adjustment and your body’s natural response in the absence of true healing.  Ultimately, your nerves get agitated, at their roots, so they respond by decreasing signal to the rest of your body.  Here’s how this works:

Agitated Nerve Root —> Less Signal To Surrounding Muscle For 2 Reasons:

1. Surrounding muscle will pull on your spine, creating further agitation.

2. Signal strength is directed towards your brain, instead of to your muscles, as your body is attempting to protect itself and convey the amount of pain its in.  Traffic is  going the other way.

By resolving the issue at its heart, you are winning.  Your body will begin to self-soothe, and your pain signals will go away.  The message to your brain will be to grow more muscle, and your nerve roots will allow all of a muscle to contract more easily. As you know, the more muscle you get involved, the faster you’ll lose fat.

Does this sound like something that’s happened to you?
Please comment below and let me know, so I can follow-up with you and help.

If this helps you, or if you think it could help someone you know, please be sure to leave you comments and feedback below.  Also, I’m depending upon you to spread this information far and wide by clicking at least one of the social media icons on this page and sharing it with all of your loved ones and friends.

Deal?

Here we go – Shoulder Muscle Balancing:

Shoulder muscle balancing programs come down to repositioning of the shoulder onto what’s called an ‘incline plane,’ which basically means that your rotator cuff no longer has to do unnecessary work.  It’s a simple focal point for your training program, although it’s going to sound a bit overwhelming at first.  Here are the most important muscles of the shoulder girdle:

1. Trapezius (more accurately broken down into upper, middle, and lower)
2. Rhomboids
3. Lats
4. Deltoids (more accurately broken into anterior, posterior, and middle)
5. Pecs (more accurately broken down into Major and Minor)
6. Triceps
7. Biceps
8. Serratus Anterior (Boxer’s Muscle that sticks out from your side)
9. Rotator Cuff (more accurately broken down into internal and external rotators)

Then comes the surrounding areas that affect shoulder rehabilitation:

• Head on Neck (changes everything when sidebent or out of place)
• Neck (cervical alignment)
• Ribcage (intercostal muscles and breathing pattern abnormalities)
• Thoracic Spine (usually limited in extension, or backwards bending)
• Lumbar Spine (if extended, it’s very difficult not to have forward shoulder)
• Hip Flexors (when tight, they affect your entire spinal position and force thoracic restrictions)

So, the logical solution is to balance out these areas and take away the strain.  Here’s what’s needed in order to do so:

1. Assess your posture
2. Correct for ‘Forward Shoulder’ or ‘Forward Head’ (meaning rounded shoulders or your head jutting out forward when you take a picture from your side)
3. Learn how to ‘belly breathe’ through your diaphragm, instead of through your shoulders (belly out, not shoulders up, especially during exercise)
4. Strengthen Your Shoulders:  This includes your Lats, Rhomboids, Middle Trap, Lower Trap, and Posterior Deltoids
5. Mobilize (active stretching) your Pecs, Lats, Thoracic Spine, and Hip Flexors
6. Strengthen your core for all overhead exercises, so you have proper support.
7. Train ‘Proprioception,’ or ‘position sense’ by working on closed-chain, or weight bearing exercises with your upper body, while watching shoulder posture
8. Work close to your body before working further away (your shoulder is more stable when your elbows are near your side – you lose stability and require more support as you extend your arms in front of yourself or overhead)
9. Strengthen your Rotator Cuff, functionally, by constantly paying attention to shoulder posture and position with exercises, as well as working the individual movements of each rotator cuff muscle.
10. Integrate the rest of your body into these movements by adding complexity to your exercises once in the right position (for example, a squat and press is an integrated whole body movement that targets lower body movement, spinal movement, and requires you maintain proper shoulder, head, and neck posture while you move)

Finally, don’t forget to stretch all the right muscles.

Here’s a great video on how to properly stretch all of the muscles surrounding your shoulder girdle.  You’ll love it, and don’t forget to comment:

Did this post help you?

Please comment below and let me know…

Today is a very different day.  Today, we live in a world where there are Doctors of Physical Therapy – true experts in our field.  Autonomy is a privilege and a right for Physical Therapists, and ‘Direct Access’ even exists.  This means that you can see a Physical Therapist in the United States without even having to see a physician first.

We are blessed to be in this position, as Physical Therapists are able to provide recommendations and plans of care that far exceed the limited amount of training that medical doctors receive in regards to exercise program design, pain relief through non-pharmaceutical means, and movement abnormality diagnosis.  You see, the way you move may be causing you harm or it may be helping you, but first you need to understand what’s right, and how your body, in particular responds to each exercise.

I regularly receive comments and feedback from people who have trouble with the following exercises, above all the rest:

1. Squat
2. Lunge
3. Pull Up
4. Push Up
5. Deadlift
6. Cleans
7. Presses
8. Planks

Understanding that these 8 exercises are the eight most fundamental exercises for fat loss, this has left me distraught.  In person, we’ve developed a program called ‘Metabolic Training’ (more to come on this soon) that helps overcome these types of issues.  However, we’ve never been able to achieve this online.

Step into the future of Physical Therapy…

Are you ready to feel great?  …because I’m not going to give up on you.  I’m currently in the process of developing the first-ever online Physical Therapy program.  I’ll be certifying therapists at the ‘Master-Level’ to administer physical therapy evaluations and movement abnormality diagnoses online, and I plan to share this service with you, first.

Dominate your goals – win, every single time.  No more excuses, and no more opportunities for failure.  All along, I’ve been listening, and I’ve been searching for the ability to help you, in person, or online.  To date, no one has done this… so I figured, if you want change, do it yourself, and set the example.

The key factors for successful Physical Therapy are:

• Customized Evaluation Process
• Movement Screening Evaluations
• Medical History Review
• Pain Assessment & Questionnaire
• Tissue Release Work
• Body Repositioning For Success
• Movement Education
• Strength &  Mobility
• Creating A Belief System Centered Around Success, and Nothing Else

It dawned on me that all of these things are possible online.

You see, I’ve always believed in ‘hands on care,’ which is great, and that’s why I’ve studied Manual Physical Therapy, extensively.  In person, you’d likely experience our therapists manually releasing tight muscles, fascial restrictions, and repositioning joints to their ideal position.  There are certain innate advantages to doing things this way, including faster healing and the certainty that the body is safe.

However, we began movement related screenings in January of this year, and we noticed that most everything was possible through movement, even if it took slightly longer to get the same result.  The best part about this, though, is that fat loss can happen simultaneously, or you can build muscle, or just plain improve fitness levels.

Enter Internet Physical Therapy – The New Era For Advanced Physical Therapy Care

Imagine this… you are in your home, and all you need is a camera on your computer or a video camera set up pointing at you.  Simultaneously, we have a Master-certified Doctor of Physical Therapy, trained directly by me, with a camera pointing at himself.  Now, think Ustream, but so much better – we’re talking interactive video conferencing aimed to see you move, watch what you do right, wrong, and what movement abnormalities exist.

All of this, from the comfort of your own home… or hotel, or what have you.

A Master Therapist evaluates you, learns about you, and finds out what’s holding you back.  Incidentally, this person is also a Master-certified Personal Trainer, well-versed in any fitness program you can imagine.  In essence, you’re peering into the environment of Global Fitness LLC, and you’ll be treated as one of our family.

Then, you can be placed in a movement-abnormality specific Bootcamp or individual training session, depending upon what’s more appropriate, where you can exercise with the guidance of a trained professional.  You can see the way they move, and they can see you too.

This, my friends, is going to be revolutionary.  Pain is going to go away, and fat loss freedom will ensue.  Your life will be different.

Now, let’s go a step further… what will the rest of your day feel like when you no longer move in pain?  How will you treat others?  Will you finally be motivated again?

It’s time to solve pain – it’s time to solve fat loss – it’s time to open up your life to all of the possibilities of reversing age and redefining life for what it should be:  Amazing.

I’m game, and I’m willing to work out the details.

Are you interested?

Please comment below, and be sure to let us know what’s stopping you from reaching you fat loss and fitness goals.  Let us know how, in specific, we can help, and we’ll design this program to focus on your life, and your well-being.