My friend Lisa has three beautiful children – and is still nursing the most recent addition to her family. She’s already started to lose the baby weight – Lisa is already down to 196 lbs, having started at 226 lbs a few months ago. She’s doing really well, and wants to make sure she continues to make progress while building up her strength training.

Starting Parameters

Height: 5’7.5”
Weight: 196# (but I’m holding water big-time—I think my “real” weight is 193.)
Bodyfat estimate: 39.6%
LBM: about 118 lbs based on this estimate (more…)

This one is just too cool not to post.

Artwork by Vincent Radford:

From the original, shot by Greg Ehlers:

The place: Tournament of Champions – Anaheim, California

The date: September 22, 2007

The event: Joshie-poos very first bodybuilding competition.

The challenge: to get this 210 lbs of lean mass into a sub-6% body in time for the show. And to find a banana hammock big enough to contain him.

We have 57 days – basically 8 weeks – to drop 15+ lbs of fat. (more…)

This is the cut that never ends, I swear.

That being said, I want to see how truly freaking lean I can get this year.

I’ve been hovering around 134-137 for what seems to be an eternity, but my weight has finally started to cooperate with me – 132 lbs as of this AM, and after two days in a row with carbs.

Funny that this whole “eating less food” thing really works!

My workouts are in a holding pattern at this point. (more…)

High Intensity Interval Foreplay

- How to get yourself excited for the main event.

MariAnne Anderson, BSc, MSc(B),
with thanks to Tyron Piteau, B.H.K., R.K., C.H.E.K. Practitioner Level 2
http://www.makersbody.com

Have you ever stood by the microwave, watching a trickle of electronic seconds count down the arrival of improperly warmed food; wondering how much time you’ve wasted watching timers steal individual seconds from your life? Well, I feel the same way about the timer on the treadmill.

In the world of physique enhancement, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is gaining popularity over the old-school “twice-a-day, steady-state” cardio sessions that once dominated pre-contest prep.

Not only is HIIT less boring than watching your life being stolen from you one unpleasant second at a time, interval training is more effective at targeting subcutaneous fat stores while sparing lean mass – something that gains significance the deeper you are into your cut.

Although many athletes use sprint intervals as part of our conditioning, it’s a relative newcomer to “mainstream” fitness; outside of bodybuilding or athletics, not THAT many people do it, and fewer still really know how to prepare for an activity that switches rapidly from eccentric to concentric contraction. Perhaps more for this than for any other type of activity, proper warmup and stretching is key to both optimal performance and injury prevention. (more…)

My friend Moe wants to try out my cutting protocol. I’ve helped her set this up based on what she can train with, work-arounds for her injuries, and the days she can make it to the gym.

You can follow her progress on her board here.

Moe’s starting parameters:

• 185 lbs, 22% bodyfat (assumed)
• 145 lbs lean mass
• The plan is to get her to 16% – roughly 170 lbs – in about four months.

Moe’s restrictions:

• No running
• Bum shoulder that precludes most heavy pulling movements, including chins
• Maintenance calories aren’t very high – 2000 a day – so we don’t want to drop too much from food. Average cals are set at 1600 to start.
• Moe teaches a few workout classes, so these have to be worked into her training.

For reference, the cut plan is based on the following information: (more…)

Well … I’m behind schedule – that scraped up foot in April didn’t do me any good, and I’ve been plagued with a displaced rib that keeps popping out of position … but it’s coming along.

Under the advice of Erik Ledin, I’ve reduced my training volume now that I’m hovering around what feels like 15%-16% bodyfat. Weight this AM: 134 lbs. I’m reasonably confident I have about 114-115 lbs LBM.

My delts are striated and vascular. I have veins running down my biceps, one running sideways along the left bicep. I have veins in my pecs, occasionally visible veins in my abs and into my groin.
Legs remain a major PITA, but here’s what I’m doing with them currently: (more…)

I’m fiddling with an interesting cardio protocol I read about earlier this year. In a nutshell, it’s 8-second sprints with 12-second recovery periods. I’m nicknaming it “8 seconds of glory” and you build up to doing these 20-second cycles for 15 minutes in total. I started with three. I’m at eight right now. Trust me, by the 6th minute, you hate your life.

Method:
Set up on an upright or recumbent bike (I prefer recumbent for the quad pump, plus it’s easier on my back but either is fine) and start pedaling at a tension that you COULD keep up for at least 20 minutes. Start watching the clock.

1. When it hits the 20-second mark, pedal like mad for 8 seconds
   Then pedal as slowly as you like for 12 seconds.
2. Repeat as many times as you can. I would suggest 3 minutes if you’re in reasonable shape. Build it up to as many as 10 minutes of these little intervals.
3. Cool down for the rest of your 20-minute session. In other words, if you warmed up for a minute, then did 3 minutes of intervals (ie 9 complete 20-second cycles), you have used up 4 minutes – spin it out at a moderate intensity for 16 more minutes. As you do more intervals, your cool-down gets shorter, until you are doing 10 minutes of each. At this point, increase the tension on the bicycle to make the interval work harder rather than doing more and more intervals, k?

Observations:
It’s clearly a variant of HIIT, and one of the problems inherent in HIIT was demonstrated by Romijn, Coyle, Sidossis, Zhang and Wolfe: 5 minutes after high intensity cardio there’s an overshoot of blood FFA levels, probably from a removal of the inhibition of release. This is because anything over about 8 seconds involves going beyond ATP for energy, and that means lactate.

I’ll explain where I’m going with this: (more…)

Okay, so I wanted to call this “the Skinny on Fats” – but it’s SOooooo cheesy! (Okay, and it’s been done. A lot.)

Undaunted, I tossed around some other possibilities:

‘Grease – The Untold Story,” Rejected. Too “Olivia Newton-John.”

Continuing, I tried “Hey Fatty” – but it somehow just didn’t convey my usual academic style.

So I’ll settle on “Mmmmm fat!” (more…)

As we enter into this, the month of the New Year’s resolution, a common question that hits the boards is “how much cardio should I do to lose this gut/ass” (depending on your particular assignment of X and Y chromosomes).

To anyone who knows me, the thought that my lazy, cardio-hating ass would actually sit down and WRITE about this most … unpleasant of activities, bear with me – this profound distaste has fuelled my attempt to find a way to optimize physique goals while doing as little cardio as humanly possible.

In spite of my deeplfy-rooted loathing for this type of activity, I am gradually learning to respect some of the benefits targeted amounts of it can do – not only for fat burning, but also for muscle growth (gasp!). (1) (2) (more…)