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Is Spot Reduction a Myth?

December 13, 2010 admin No comments

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Is Spot Reduction a Myth?

Hi,

Everyone knows you can’t spot reduce, right?

After all, all the research for years and years has “proven” that it is not possible.

So, me and my fitness buddies from my college days wondered why it was so easy to gain fat around the waist and not on the arms.

I said, well you are always moving your arms constantly all day long. And even though we were all active, we realized that we did not exercise our mid sections like we did our arms.

Was it possible to do thousands of situps a day and burn off that fat around the middle?

Well, back then there weren’t any answers – except that spot reduction did not work.

Move to today and maybe we were on to something back then.

Some research done in 2007 showed that it might be possible to do a little spot reduction for subcutaneous fat only.

This study showed that spot lipolysis can occur with an “acute” bout of exercise.

This means that you can burn adjacent fat with intense exercise of a specific muscle.

Now this is different from what I had guessed in my college days.

This says that you have to have intense exercise for that muscle in order to effect subcutaneous fat around that muscle.

I guessed that constant exercise would do the same. Who knows maybe a later study will show this to be true also.

The problem of course is that most people won’t do continuous exercise. After all who wants to do 1000 sit ups a day? Not many.

And the intense exercise is also a problem. Who wants to put a 100 pound dumbbell on their chest and then do sit ups until they can’t budge? Not many.

I think there is a way to combine both in order to get the best of both worlds. But, that will remain a secret until my program comes out, sometime in 2011.

In the meantime, if you have too much fat around a specific area, continue with your fat burning routines (read previous posts to find out more) to burn more fat overall.

Then take a few minutes and concentrate on your specific area.
Do those two things and you will have a fat burning routine that lasts all day. You will get overall fat burning and spot reduction at the same time.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Lose Weight VS Nicer Body

December 6, 2010 admin No comments

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Lose Weight VS Nicer Body

Hi,

Would you rather just lose weight or have a nicer body?

Now you might think that just losing weight will automatically make you have a nicer body. And this is true for some people.

It is usually true for those that already have a more active lifestyle.

But, for most people, losing weight doesn’t really change their appearance too much. Except they are a smaller version of theirselves.

This is because if you just lose weight you are losing weight from not only body fat, but also from muscle tissue.

If is muscle tissue that will help you have a nicer body.

Now some people are born with a naturally nice looking body. Others aren’t. That has to do with genetics.

While you can’t change genetics, you can help it.

Having a muscular body will help determine your shape. Now that does not mean you have to have huge muscles.

But, having firm, strong and shapely muscles is something that is considered appealing in most societies. This is whether you are male or female.

Just losing weight does nothing for your shape. To change your shape you have to do something for your muscles.

That means moving more. Maybe it is just walking, maybe just jogging, maybe a fitness class, or maybe weight training.

You know how much you are moving and exercising now. If your body isn’t in the shape you want it to be in, then you will have to do more of the moving and exercising part.

And while you are doing that you will be raising your metabolism which means that you will be burning more body fat.

Ergo, you will be losing weight from body fat and not from muscle tissue. That way you will be able to transform your body, not just make it smaller.

I think that in the losing weight vs having a nicer body, that having a nicer body is actually the way to go.

So get out there and start moving and exercising more.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Can You Burn Fat While You Sleep?

October 20, 2010 admin No comments

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Hi,

Many diet companies have maintained that you can burn fat while you sleep.

All you have to do is take their magic pill and voila your are a slim, fantastic looking 20 year old fitness model in only a few days.

Well, that is pretty much BS.

However, the premise of burning fat while sleeping is not BS.

When you do certain kinds of exercise routines, you will actually raise your metabolism.

Actually any exercise routine will raise your metabolism during the time you are doing the exercises.

However, most exercise programs are so feeble that this raised metabolism goes away almost as soon as you stop the exercise program.

By altering your exercise routine to specifically keep your metabolism raised after the exercise stops is very possible.

This raised metabolism can last from 24-72 hours after the exercise session.

So if your metabolism is raised for say 48 hours the odds are you are going to be sleeping during that time. And even though your metabolism does slow down when you sleep, it will still be slightly elevated because of your exercise session.

This process is called EPOC or excess post-exercise oxidative consumption.

That is a big long fancy term for saying that your body will burn more oxygen after the exercise is over.

So what kind of exercise sessions will induce EPOC?

Weight training is one of them. But, you have to really weight train, not just lift some tiny weight for 500 repetitions.

And you have to do it long enough. Long enough does not have to be that long however.

You are trying to induce enough muscle trauma (from lifting the weights) that your body needs to spend a lot of energy on repairing those muscles.

4-5 sets of 10-12 repetitions is probably the easiest way to start. The weight should be heavy enough that you can get 12 reps moderately easy on the first set.

Your rest period is only 30 seconds at the most.

This is much different than the 3 sets of 10 and rest 3 minutes protocol you see in many muscle building books and magazines.

The three minute rest comes from power lifters and people lifting to be as strong as possible. This gives you about a 95% recovery so that you will be strong on your next set.

A lot of body builders started using this 3 minute thing and of course the magazines picked it up and now everyone in the gym rests for 3 or more minutes between sets.

Even if they haven’t lifted more than a three year old girl could.

So skip that long rest. And add one or two more sets to the standard 10 reps. Extended sets will help the EPOC effect much more.

Make sure you are controlling the weight throughout the session. Don’t race through the reps. In fact try to extend the set for at least 36 seconds.

This works all the different types of muscle fibers. Short sets don’t get to the endurance fibers.

More on this topic of burning fat while you sleep in the next post.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Gain Muscle – Lose Fat Review

October 18, 2010 admin 11 comments

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Hi,

Can you gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

Many people don’t think so. And I think that this is a case of getting too much information and not seeing the whole picture.

There is a new ebook out called The Holy Grail Body Transformation book. In it Tom Venuto talks about losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time.

Now Tom is a body builder and he looks the part. But, more than that he is a pretty smart guy and has written a lot on the topic.

Body builders are obsessed with building muscle and losing fat. Their normal way of doing things is to gain a lot of weight and muscle in the off season. Some of this weight is fat.

Then they go on an extended diet to lose the body fat while keeping the muscle during the competition season.

If they could find a way to build muscle while losing fat at the same time, then indeed that would be the holy grail for body builders.

However, I am assuming you are not a body builder and probably don’t have any desires to look like one. At least not like the giants (male and female) that are in the sport today.

So does this gaining muscle while losing fat work for the average person.

Bottom line is yes.

Look anytime you start an exercise routine you are going to be affecting your muscles. If you lift a weight you will get stronger and the muscle will grow.

While you are doing the exercise you will also be raising your metabolism. This will help burn body fat.

So as you are doing this one exercise you are indeed building muscle and losing fat at the same time.

But, as you get in better shape this dual action becomes harder to do. That is because your body gets used to it.

So doing the same exercise will become routine and you have to add more weight or do more reps or change the tempo.

Now this is a good thing and it is a sign you are making progress.

But, it only works up great up to a certain point.

That is why body builders have learned to focus on building muscle part of the time and burning fat the other time.

So Tom’s book is really making waves in the fitness world.

I think it is a great book for anyone looking to find out more information on gaining some muscle and losing some fat at the same time.

As I said Tom is a pretty smart guy and I enjoy his writing style. If you want more information check out his book here:

Hope you enjoyed this gain muscle and lose fat review. I plan on doing more of these. Let me know if you have an interest.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Growth Hormone and Fat Loss

October 11, 2010 admin 17 comments

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Hi,

Can growth hormone (GH) help with fat loss?

The short answer is yes.

A study done back in 2008 showed that growth hormone helps build muscle and helps raise the body’s metabolism.

In this study the metabolism of a group of middle aged men was raised by an average of 172 calories per day.

Now that might not seem like much, but think about it over a years period of time. That 172 calories per day becomes 62780 calories in 1 year.

Divide that by 3500 calories in a pound and you would lose almost 18 pounds in a year.

Yes, I know that doesn’t really compare to the marketing hype surrounding diet pills, exercise programs, diet programs and all the other scams out there.

But, 18 pounds in a year is a good goal to shoot for. And you get this just by taking some GH.

These figures are pretty close to what actually happened. The men were given GH (by injection) for 6 months and gained 5.5 pounds of muscle and lost 8.8% of body fat.

Now, here is the problem. The injections.

The injections work. The problem is, other methods of administering GH have not shown the same results.

Fortunately, there are ways to raise your GH levels without injections or taking it orally.

This is through good old exercise.

Now regular exercise will raise it a bit, but by doing specific exercises and with specific intensities, you can amplify the results.

A typical GH enhancing exercise would be the squat. The squat has always been a great exercise for building overall strength and muscle and one of the reasons is because of its GH boosting properties.

I loved doing the squat. But, after back surgery it is no longer an option. So lunges and leg presses are what works for me.

Any exercise where you are using as many muscles in the body as possible at the same time are GH boosting exercises.

To get the most you have to use weights. So just a body weight squat will not give you the same GH boost that squating with 315 pounds across your back will.

To use lots of weight most people will have to go to a gym. But, there is another way.

That is to do pretty much non-stop exercises. This is a type of high intensity exercise that can also work and you only need your body.

Let’s use leg exercises as an example.

Start out with doing squats for 36 seconds non – stop. Rest for 10 seconds. Do another set and rest for 10 seconds.

Then do side to side squats. (I will put a video of these up soon). Start in your normal squat position and do a full squat. While in the down position, step out to the right side with your right foot. Bring your left foot to the right as you stand up.

Reverse this by going to the left. Do this exercise for 36 seconds. Rest 10 seconds and repeat 1 more time.

On to lunges. Do around the world lunges. This is done like so:

Do a forward lunge and step back. With the same leg, step to a side lunge and step back. Follow up with a rear lunge and step back. Now do the same thing with the other leg.

Do this for as many reps as you can. Make sure you do proper lunges. Form is more important than speed.

When you can’t do any more, rest 10 seconds. The finish with stationary forward lunges. Just step forward into a lunge position with one leg. Stay there and do as many lunges as possible or 36 seconds, whichever comes first.

Rest 10 seconds and repeat with the other leg.

Then collapse.

This group of exercises uses almost every muscle in the body. And the intensity factor will make your GH skyrocket.

Not only that, but this exercise session will ignite your EPOC to accelerate your fat burning from another angle.

Try this and your growth hormone will surge and your fat loss accelerate.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Want Great Arms and Burn Body Fat?

September 28, 2010 admin 3 comments

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Hi,

Do you want great arms and burn body fat at the same time?

If so then you need to be negative.

That means you have to increase the amount of time you spend returning the weight to the starting position.

So for biceps curls, you lift the weight upwards.

When you have the weight up, tighten the muscle as hard as you can for a split second.

Then, and this is the important part, lower the weight back to the starting position very slowly. Take 4 to 6 seconds to do this.

The upward lifting is called the positive part of the rep and the lowering is called the negative. The more scientific terms are concentric and eccentric.

The slow lowering is much more damaging to the muscle tissue.

All exercise damages your muscles somewhat, but lowering the weight slowly damages it the most.

And this is what you want if you want to burn body fat.

After you do any weight training, your body has to recover. The recovery does two things.

It takes more energy to repair your muscle tissue. You will have many tiny tears in the muscle and this is what needs to be repaired. This takes energy and your body gets it from raising your metabolism and burning body fat.

The other thing your body does is to realize that it needs a bigger muscle to handle what you just did to it.

So it repairs the muscle and adds a little bit of size to it. Again, lowering the weight slowly causes this repair process and growth process to accelerate.

A word of caution. You can’t do this at every workout. Even if you are only 20 and full of energy.

Add your negatives about once a month for a particular body part. That will be plenty to get the growth and raised metabolism you desire.

Add these to your routine and watch your arms grow while you burn more fat in the process.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Are Your Shoulders Stiff?

September 13, 2010 admin 6 comments

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Hi,

Are your shoulders stiff? How about your neck?

If you spend a lot of time sitting you will most likely encounter a stiff neck and shoulders.

That is because the longer you sit, the more you tend to lean just a little bit forward.

You do this at the computer, while driving, while eating, while reading and while watching TV.

As you can see those hours add up day after day after day.

This will cause a muscle imbalance and eventually cause you to have tight shoulders and neck muscles. The only natural position for you then becomes a slight lean forward.

If you exercise like most people (this is true especially for men) you will only compound the program.

That is because most people tend to do a lot more exercises for the chest and shoulders than for the back.

Bench presses and forward raises with dumbbells are the two prime culprits here.

Very seldom do you see someone working the rear deltoids.

Very seldom do you see someone pulling the shoulder blades together as the initial movement on their back exercises.

The good news is this condition can be corrected fairly easily. It will take some time because remember you have been sitting this way for a long time.

Anyhow, the exercise is called stick ups. This is because you are raising your hands over your head as if someone tells you to stick ‘em up.

Only you will do this against a wall.

Now there is a popular exercise program out there that does show this exercise. But, they do it all wrong. And they give no details on how to do it properly.

So here is how you do it. (And yes, I will have a video of this in the very near future.)

Stand with your back facing a wall with a ceiling high enough to raise your arms all the way up.

Your feet should be about 6 inches from the wall and your butt, shoulders and head should be touching the wall.

Raise your arms and hands over your head as in the “stick ‘em up” position. Now try to touch your wrists and elbows to the wall and slide them down.

Slide your elbows down until they touch (or almost touch) your sides.

The goal is to keep your butt, head, shoulders, elbows and wrists touching the wall throughout the exercise.

If you are anything like me, you will have trouble doing this. But, the goal is to keep practicing until your shoulder mobility increases.

This will have a profound effect on your posture also.

I am sure you have noticed people that walk and sit ram rod straight. There are so few people that do this that they stand out.

Notice that their shoulders are always back. This is what you are striving for.

As your mobility improves you will notice that your shoulder and neck pain will start to lesson and gradually disappear.

Remember this will take some time to get back to a normal range of motion, maybe even a year or more. But, the improvements will start almost immediately.

So, if your shoulders are stiff, start doing this exercise now. Do it for a few minutes every day.

And even if your shoulders aren’t stiff, you can still do these exercises to prevent them becoming stiff.

Thanks,

Mike Val

Aging Metabolism

September 8, 2010 admin 13 comments

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Hi,

I just read an article about your aging metabolsim.

It started out like this: “Getting older means losing muscle and a slowing metabolism. That is a harsh fact.”

So is this really true?

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people it is. And that is because they don’t do anything about it.

One of the side consequences of this “truism” is that as you lose muscle mass, you metabolism will slow down. And that means weight gain.

You will not be able to control this weight gain by dieting alone. Because of the way the body works any diet you go one will only make the slowing metabolism problem worse.

If you look around you, you will see that most older people do have more body weight and their body shape is not that of a healthy athlete. And they pretty much don’t have much muscle.

This trend has been going on for some time and it is affecting younger and younger older people. And it will get worse.

You have read the statistics. Over 2/3 of the population is overweight or obese.

I would guess that the vast majority of these people do not do anything to keep their muscles strong and their metabolism stoked.

So, the question is, do you have to be one of these people?

The answer is NO.

However, once you say that you are not going to be one of those out of shape older persons, what are you going to do about it?

Here are two things you can start doing.

One if to change your eating patterns. Notice I did not say go on a diet. That is the worst thing you can do.

But, you can eat healthier. You can eat more organic foods. You can up the good quality protein you eat.

You also have to move you body. And not just a leisurely stroll for a few minutes a day.

Now if you are already terribly out of shape, then maybe a leisurely stroll is all you can do. To start with.

You do need to start however. And you need to increase the amount of movement you do. That is because your body is a great adapting machine.

If you do the same exercise for the same amount of time and with the same level of intensity pretty soon that exercise will not give you the same benefits.

Your body will adapt to whatever stress that exercise is providing you. And soon that exercise will not be stressful.

This is good in that it shows that you are making progress.

It is bad in that you now have to do either more or something else to continue to get the benefits of this stress (this is good stress).

So now my question is can you start doing this tomorrow?

Stay tuned for my surprising take on the probable answer to this question.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Post Holiday Workout

September 7, 2010 admin 1 comment

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Hi,

Hope you enjoyed the holiday weekend. Now, what about your first post holiday workout?

If you are like most people you probably ate a little bit more food than normal over the holiday.

I know I did. I also had a lot more carbs than normal.

So what can you do about that excess energy. Make your first workout that you do after your holiday extra hard.

That could mean you spend more time and add a few exercises or that you increase the intensity by trying to get through it faster.

Sometimes the latter is harder to do, so increasing the time is probably the easiest.

But, you can do something else to help burn off those excess calories pretty quickly.

Use more weight and/or more time per rep.

When you are doing weight lifting, you might not really be pushing yourself all the time to improve the weight you are using.

Your body adapts and you are not getting the same benefit of training as you did when you first started out.

When you lift weights, you damage your muscles. I am talking about minor tears in the myofibrils, not actually tearing or ripping the muscle.

The repair of the muscles takes a lot of energy. This raises your metabolism and burns calories and body fat.

That is one of the reasons you can really change your body shape and lose a lot of fat with weight lifting over just using body weight.

So in your first workout lift heavier than you normally do and you will get this extra repair benefit. Also just concentrate on multi joint exercises.

These would include squats, chest presses, deadlifts and rows.

You can also get it by increasing the time of the repetition. Especially on the eccentric or lowering phase of the exercise.

For example, with chest presses, pressing up is the concentric phase. The lowering of the bar is the ecentric phase. Try lowering the bar over a count of 6 seconds before doing the next rep.

Do not do your whole workout this way. Eccentric contractions are harder and actually cause more myofibril damage than concentric contractions.

Just pick 1 exercise and concentrate on the concentric portion.

Try this post holiday workout and you will burn away all of those excess calories very quickly.

Thanks,

Mike Val

How Long Before You Lose Muscle Power?

August 30, 2010 admin No comments

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Hi,

If you stop exercising how long will it take before you lose muscle power?

You might have heard statistics that range from a few hours to a few weeks.

But, there was actually a study done to determine this. In was done in Sweden and was designed to measure muscle loss on bed ridden patients.

It was a very small study – only 8 men – and they had to stay in bed with no movement for 1 leg.

The results showed that at the three day period muscle loss accelerated in the stationary leg.

Hopefully, you will never be on bed rest, but if you are then ask your doctor how to limit your muscle loss while in your bed rest position.

This is very important for any kind of rehab. It takes a lot of work to build muscle. If you can lose it in just three days, then you want to keep moving as much as possible.

But, what about if you don’t use your muscles in your normal life?

Well, that is just about impossible. Anytime you move some of your muscles are activated.

Problem is just doing simple everday things are not enough.

As you do your daily routine, your muscles adapt to that level of output. If you aren’t “working them” then there is no reason for them to adapt and to grow bigger and stronger.

Smaller and weaker muscles will burn hardly any body fat. without this fat burning property of muscle being activated the odds are you will get heavier and fatter as you age.

Just a little extra use of your muscles goes a long way. This does not mean 45-60 minutes of exercise a day.

Most people don’t have the time or won’t make the time to exercise.

Walking, jogging and other types of aerobic exercise are good for you and should be a regular part of any exercise routine.

I think that some resistance training (like weight lifting) is a necessary component also.

Start with your body weight when you are starting any exercise program. As you get stronger you can start adding weights.

This will help you shape your body and your muscles so that you look better. Combine this with your aerobics and a good nutrition plan and you won’t ever have to worry about how long it will take before you lose muscle power.

Thanks,

Mike Val

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Browsing Posts tagged Muscle

Is Spot Reduction a Myth?

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Lose Weight VS Nicer Body

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Can You Burn Fat While You Sleep?

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Gain Muscle – Lose Fat Review

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Growth Hormone and Fat Loss

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Want Great Arms and Burn Body Fat?

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Are Your Shoulders Stiff?

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Aging Metabolism

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Post Holiday Workout

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How Long Before You Lose Muscle Power?

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