Bridal Fitness Part 1

Since getting engaged myself and hearing from many others now that I'm part of the club, the hot topic is..... the bride getting in shape for that big day. I see it everywhere, all the women's magazines have a get fit for your wedding article, future brides are flooding their pinterest with anything they can find related to "bridal fitness" and working out. So this is to help them and you take the first steps...and hopefully several more!

Which although I am not a woman I am certainly putting my bride to be through the paces in her workouts. This will be an informative series in a practical sense, again those interested specifically in the science can comment or email me. Otherwise in my experience most of you don't care so much about the details, and if you haven't taken anatomy or biology at some point in your life it wouldn't mean anything anyway!

Lets get to the nitty-gritty that's on all your female minds right away

Can women train like men? Or should they follow a female specific workout plan?

• No need for female specific anything, as far as training goes women and men both should get some level of relative strength from body-weight work before using resistance like weights. 
• Both men and women should also focus on developing strength through compound movements when possible as opposed to focusing on isolation. ( Think hitting squats and bench press THEN your favorite machines if you have energy, as opposed to just going to the gym hitting tricep pushdowns and leg extensions and expecting change!

Will women get big and bulky from even looking at heavy weights?

• No, simply put it is a matter of hormones and since men have more than 10x as much testosterone as women, unless you have a female on steroids it is impossible to develop muscle and weight gain like a man. Not to mention that in addition to this the female body is actually built differently from a mans (weird I know...kidding) meaning your muscles are actually distributed differently across the body than a mans.
• "Toning" is simply removing the fat that is covering a developed muscle, if you don't have muscle built from lifting heavy weights then there is nothing there to tone! Think about all the women you see doing excessive cardio and then they look "too skinny" and "flabby" and then they just do even MORE cardio thinking that what they are doing isn't working! It is working just fine but you don't have any muscle so you just look like a bag of bones with no fat on your bodies!
• By the way I do not like the words "toning" or "firming" up, these words have come to represent a made up category. There is no such thing as just doing toning or firming work,  that "toned" appearance that all women crave is simply tension stored in a muscle that has been developed and is prepared to work! The stronger your muscles are, the firmer they are to the touch!

Lastly here is a quote on an example from a world class trainer in New Jersey who works with all caliber of professional athletes - Joe DeFranco

• …I compare gaining muscle & losing fat to cooking a hamburger on a George Foreman Griller… Let’s say you take a big handful of ground beef, mold it into a hamburger and then place it on the griller. After it’s done cooking, is it going to be bigger or smaller? Obviously, the hamburger shrinks after it’s fully cooked. Why did it shrink? It shrunk because it lost the fat and kept the “muscle”. Basically, the end result of having muscle without a lot of fat is a smaller, leaner burger! The same holds true for humans!! If we can gain or maintain muscle while losing fat, we are going to look leaner (and females will usually look smaller). To add to this concept, it’s important for females to know that muscle takes up less space than fat in your body. For example, 5 pounds of muscle takes up less space than 5 pounds of fat! So if you can get your females to lose fat and gain an equal amount of muscle, they really will be SMALLER (even though their scale weight will not change).

Mind blowing stuff huh?

So taking these principles our future brides looking to get in shape should:

This...

And this...

• Start some sort of training routine involving bodyweight to get their bodies used to training before hitting an external load of some kind -

Before this! It's all about progression!

• Concentrate on using big movements that involve as much of the body as possible when they do start using weights, with the goal of always increasing in reps or poundage used or both

• Forget about using the scale as our main measure of progress, if you gain 5 pounds of muscle and lose 3 pounds of fat your "scale weight" barely changed AND in the "wrong direction" but there was a pretty decent change in body composition that you will like I guarantee you!

Many people want to jump right into weights or whatever the local fad of training is, but please don't. Get a base of body-weight work in for 2-6 weeks initially and keep including it even once you've advanced.

I mean when was the last time you saw a girl in the gym banging out pushups? 

Yet you will always see a girl on some type of cable or machine working her chest or arms, and yet she never seems to look any different?

Now I'll use Amber as an example, do you think that her ability to do full range of motion push ups has anything to do with her ability to use over half her body weight on the bench press...?

Always energy left for curls

Absolutely! But it does not work both ways. Her being able to crank out sets of pushups gave her the initial strength to even be able to use the bar by itself on a bench press.

Buuuuut obviously she could not just walk into a gym for the first time on her quest to be a fit bride and begin with being not even strong enough to press the bar... and just struggle to bang out horrible forced reps which would suddenly give her the ability to do pushups? No, she would not have had the strength to use even the bar alone, learning and performing the exercise with good technique is out the window!

Plus getting used to body-weight movements, most of them resemble pretty closely their weighted barbell or dumbbell versions.

Will learning to do pushups on your own and correctly help you keep the bar straight and balanced when you start benching or doing some form of weighted upper body work- Yes

Will learning to squat without weight transition you to weighted squats much easier - yes definitely this is like learning to ride a bike with training wheels, when they finally come off you don't have to think about pedaling and steering, just balance. Like wise with the squat you won't be trying to think about butt back and knees out and whatever other cues apply to you all while being crushed by the weight! (not that you should ever start with a weight that crushes you...)

Next time I'll detail an example bodyweight training program with some instructions on the movements and how to progress as well as touch on the next aspect of bridal fitness ------ Diet!

____________________________________________________________________________

Here's my training for the week

7/3 - Lower

1. Squats - bar x 20 , 95 x 15 , 135 x 10 , 185 x 5 , 205 x 5 , 225 x 5

2. Walking lunge - 10lb db's x 10 steps L/R, 5lb db's x 10 steps L/R , BW x 10 steps L/R

3. Romanian deadlifts - 95lb x 10 , 135 x 6 , 185 x 5 , 205 x 5

Neck harness - 4 x 25 @ 12.5lb

7/5 - Upper

Bench - 45lb x 20 , 95 x 12 , 135 x 5 , 185 x 5 , 205 x 3 , 215 x 6 , 185 x 4 , 155 x 6 , 135 x 7

(bold is work set/PRs and italics is dropset)

2A. Mixed pull ups - 8 pullups , 9 chinups, 8 wide pullups, 9 neutral chins

2B. Incline DB bench - 40s x 8 , 50s x 8 , 60s x 5 , 70s x 5

3A. Neutral pushups 2xmax - 32 , 18

3B. BB Reverse curls - 45lb x 15 , 10

Neck harness - 4 x 25 @ 15lbs /// Band PA's - 4 x 25



7/7 - Full body

1A. DB Snatch - 60lb x 5 , 70lb x 5

1B. DB Press - 40lb x 5 , 50 x 5

2. Zercher squats - 135lb x 10 , 155 x 10 , 10

3. DB Swings - 3 x 10 @ 70lb db

1/2 mile run - 4:30

7/9 - Lower

1. Squat - 45lb x 20 , 95lb x 15 , 135lb x 10 , 185lb x 10,8,12

2. Split squats - BW x 6 , +10lb dbs x 6 , +25s x 6 , +10s x 6

3. RDLs - 45 x 10 , 95 x 10 , 135 x 10 , 185 x 6 , 6

Neck harness - 2 x 25 @ 10lb , 50 PAs


Til next time!

Looking less like the Man of Steel and more like Doomsday

Been awhile, lost a bunch of media on my sd card for my phone. Should probably go out and buy a flipcam to start keeping records with...

Anyway, for anyone out there at all who is working out - keep it heavy and keep it intense. Barring injury, everyone should be lifting hard and heavy and if you can't or think you can't for some physical limitation or injury I guarantee there is still a way for you to train hard, probably just a less conventional way (which does not mean less effective either!)

For everyone else who is working out annnndd trying to gain weight for whatever reason - vanity, health, going up a weight class in a sport or just trying to become stronger for sport, the other things you in particular need to keep in mind are food intake and recovery. I myself was guilty of the food intake and was cursing everything for the lack of growth, it wasn't until I sat down and realized even though I eat until I'm full there is nothing left over to grow with only eating bodyweight in grams of protein and filling in the rest for a total of 2500ish calories. Just like you push training to the limit, you need to push eating to the limit as well.

Should not be a mainstay of your diet

 This does not mean I'm endorsing the idea of 3 doubledouble's and fries everyday with a gallon of milk. With eating in general and eating for mass it's about eating the right foods in the right amounts, however it fits into your schedule. We're talking a nice chunk of meat the size of your hand (which will probably equal 6-10oz) per meal as well as shoveling in the rice or potatoes or even oats for that matter. Worrying your ass off about high glycemic vs low glycemic and insulin spikes all day will get you nowhere. Unless you are competing or doing it for money it's not worth sweating the small stuff which probably doesn't affect you anyway. I mean lets face it have you been specifically planning insulin spikes, fasts, refeeds, maybe cycling carbs since you started eating healthy? Doubtful. Have you survived your entire life without doing the above? Clearly. Have you achieved some measure of success by changing diet around and working out in your life? Probably and without some of those concepts too I bet. If you do utilize them, then you have probably done plenty of research and understand how they each work and what diet plans and goals they fit into, you just don't follow your plan if you aren't achieving success.

Eat quality foods in portions you can remember. If you want to weigh everything do it and write it down, otherwise use a basic measure like your hand (which is always with you for eating out right?) and record what you eat everyday in a book.

A nicely portioned meal

It doesn't have to be advanced (it can if you want) it can be
Meal 1:  6oz of steak and 2 cups brown rice 1 cup broccoli

or it could just be
Monday : I had 6 cups of rice today and a total 5 portions of meat and unlimited veggies
(portion size whatever you want - hand size lets just say)

So with that said now said if you want to lose weight eat consistently the same amount for 2-4 weeks and watch the mirror and the scale - tape measure if you got one just for the waist measurement

Waist measurements are fun

 Tips -- 
-Eat unlimited veggies and don't go crazy on sauces and dressings, eat what you like but if you can't see the meat or veggies through the sauce there's a problem and YOU KNOW it so don't act bewildered when results don't come if you act like that

- Stick to calorie free liquids you know like water...not only of course but drink a lot of it and have diet soda or iced tea or coffee with just some cream in it.....again this is on you to control these things (if you freak out about aspartame or diet sodas then don't complain just don't drink them, if you can't handle coffee without chocolate sauce and caramel then ditch that too.)

 Don't complain to me with I'm eating 3 portions of rice a day and and 3 portions of protein its hardly anything I can't subract anymore and I'm not losing weight and I feel like crap what do I do?!?! you and your blog did this to me!! I reply with "I'm so sorry lets get a specific layout of your daily diet" and you now show me well on break at work AND when I get off I walk across the parking lot and get a Venti Chocolate frappuccino with extra caramel so I have energy for my workout-  Well no wonder you're not losing and don't feel good, over 50% of your daily intake in this case is sugar!

 Be diligent people, I hardly ever meet someone whose problem is lack of knowledge, just lack of action

Diet is incredibly simple under all the smoke

There is a base amount of food you need everyday to function, example - if you sat on the couch all day everyday and never moved your body would burn a certain amount of calories and you would need to ingest that amount everyday to live. This is your "maintenance" amount or BMR or BMI, basal metabolic rate

# If you want to lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit aka eating less than maintenance
>>yes you will be hungry, this is because you are not eating enough. It is also why you will lose weight, your body is not getting the amount of energy your body needs to keep the engines running at your current weight, so you will lose weight until the deficit number becomes your new maintenance...Cycle begins again (works the opposite direction for weight gain as well

#If you want to gain weight you need to need to be in a caloric surplus aka more than maintenance

The amount of surplus or deficit will determine how fast you gain or lose, too big of an amount and you will gain a large amount of fat in surplus or get sick in excessive deficit, I can elaborate on the reasons if you comment or email and ask, otherwise this is a basic explanation.

 - if you lose weight and want to, then keep eating the same until it stops, then drop a portion of carbs

- if you stay the same then either add/subract a portion of carbs or protein and see what happens in the mirror/scale/tape measure over the next 2-4 weeks again based on your goals

This is very basic but will do wonders for most people for the beginning, as things start to stall out after several months shoot me an email and we'll talk about whats going on, obviously we can't just subtract or add calories forever based on goals - there are limits but since most of you won't hit them until you achieve some measure of success - stop over analyzing and take action!

Educate yourself as well, from as many sources as possible

We'll talk about recovery next time.

Back into the game with some training - lets start looking like Doomsday

6/29 B2

EZ Curls - 80lb x 11 , 70lb x 10
V-Handle Pulldown - 160lb x 8 , 140lb x 7
Deadlift - 315lb x 8
Neck harness - 4 x 25 @ 10lb

7/1 A1

Bench press - 205lb x 8 , 185lb x 7
DB shoulder press - 50s x 8 , 40s x 10
Squat - 245lb x 6
Neck harnesss - 4 x 25 @ 12.5lb
Chins - sets of 3 throughout the day

Also let it be inferred that every day I'm doing 100 band pull aparts and 50 shoulder dislocates for shoulder health

Band pull aparts

til next time.