Back in June, USA Today released a story that confirmed what I have suspected for a few years: The more fit someone is, the more fat they will burn after a workout session. Fit people produce much more glycerol after a workout than someone who is not in as good of shape. Glycerol levels are an indicator of fat breakdown. Fit people burn much more fat after a brief workout than people who are not as fit (even when doing an identical workout).

[Perhaps all that it will take to break through your fat burning plateau is to reach a higher level of fitness. I will examine how that is done in this post. ]

What Is the Article Measuring as Being "Fit"

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Tags: Aerobic Exercise, body fat, cardio, fat loss momentum, high intensity, HIIT, Interval Training, jump rope, lactic acid, steady state cardio

Fat loss should be easy. It certainly looks easy on paper. What makes it tough is the fact that we tend to over complicate things. The human mind comes up with all sorts of ideas that seem legitimate at the time, but are really just excuses to avoid change. My goal in this post is to call out the common lame excuses that get in the way of hitting fat loss goals. I don't want this to be some generic bland post. Let's dig deep into excuses. I'll list some ones that I see consistently, but would love for you guys to continue in the comment section. I love digging into the psychology of achievement, success, etc. This should be fun.

[I honestly believe that successful fat loss is "all in your head" to a certain extent. While jamming a key in your ear isn't recommended, take some time to read this post and see if you are victim of any of these tricks that the mind plays.]

"I Don't Have Time to Get In Shape."

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Tags: Dieting for Fat Loss, body fat percentage, calorie deficit, fat loss, john barban, losing body fat

So I am extremely excited to introduce you to a whole new view of training and a paradigm shift when it comes to being fit. I know some of you reading this will have heard of Scott Sonnon, but I bet you haven't read too many interviews with the guy. The reason for this is that he is one of the premier special forces trainers in the world right now. He is in serious demand right now, training counter-terrorism unit, Navy SEALS, police forces, SWAT teams, etc. He spent 6 years traveling all around Russia and masterminded with former USSR Olympic Coaches and trainers of Russian Special Forces. He took this cutting-edge research and improved upon it during those 6 years and has been introducing it to the U.S. These days, everyone wants to pick his brain when it comes to fitness and conditioning. He doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of time to do interviews, but luckily I nailed a quick Q&A with him. The following is one of the best interviews I've had on this site so far.

[Ever heard of terms like "Stored Elastic Energy" or "Sequential "Summation of Forces"? When you learn conditioning from Scott, prepare add about 10-20 new terms to your vocabulary!]

How I Landed The Interview With Scott Sonnon

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Tags: Main

People often talk about rep tempo and lifting speed when it comes to gaining strength or adding muscle. What about fat loss when it comes to lifting speed? About 10 years ago I started using lower reps to increase muscle definition. I also slowed down the speed of each lift to really focus hard on increasing the tension in the lifts. This type of lifting quickly made a difference to my physique. I reached the best shape of my life lifting with sets of 5 reps at a slow pace. I didn't realize this at the time, but the slow lifting speed I was using may have contributed to reaching a low body fat percentage as well.

[No need to use a timer or stopwatch to time the speed of lifting and lowering your weights during a set. The "1 Mississippi...2 Mississippi" or "1 Alligator...2 Alligator" methods are just as accurate. Kids have been using this scientific counting method for "Hide and Seek" for centuries.]

An Interesting Study That Inspired This Post

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Tags: Muscle Tone Strategies, body fat percentage, building muscle, gaining strength, irradiation, lifting heavy, lose body fat, losing body fat, low body fat, muscle definition, pavel

So I believe that wheat allergies are nature's cruel joke. By no means am I an expert on this subject, but I have just done a bit of research. I began noticing that I would get a runny nose after certain meals containing wheat along with blood shot eyes. It isn't like I would eat a meal with wheat and feel terrible, but just bad enough to be slightly irritating. Another thing I noticed was feeling tired after a wheat heavy meal. I chalked this up to having too many carbs, but noticed a stronger reaction to meals where the carbs were made with wheat or flour.

[If you glance in the mirror and you look a little like this after chowing down some crackers or eating a snickerdoodle, then you might have a wheat allergy. If you don't have a wheat allergy...you at least need to change something, because this isn't a good look.]

"I Love Gluten. Let Me Count the Ways…"

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Tags: Diet Tips, beer, feel good eating, gluten free, marks daily apple, wheat allergies

I have to admit, I have only been exposed to thick bar training on a few occasions. I simply have never trained in a gym that had many thick barbells or dumbbells. My guess is that 99.9% of the people reading this article don't have access to thick bars either. I do have a solution for this, but first lets talk about how thick bars can significantly improve upper body development.

[If you can develop a vise-like grip, weights that once felt heavy will now feel lighter in your hands. This strength will transfer over to your entire upper body. I'll discuss why this is the case in a second.]

How Does a Strong Grip Help With Pressing Movements?

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Tags: Strength Training, chin up, chin up bar, gaining strength, getting stronger, grip strength, Pavel Tsatsouline, strength training

In my opinion your summer workout should be brief and not interfere at all with having a blast outside. When you are young it is easy to forget that your summers are limited in number. Believe me, at some point you will realize that this is not the case. For instance, I have 25 more summers until I am a senior citizen. I am not sure how that happened, but one thing is for certain…I don't plan on spending most of my summer in a gym. If your workouts are cutting into your time in the sun, then maybe this post will help.

[I am going on a 2 week road trip this year and a large part of it will be exploring Highway 1 and Highway 101 on the California Coast. Some of the coolest spots are located in between major destinations, which is why road trips (just about anywhere) are a blast. This picture was taken off Highway 1 in the central California Coastline.]

Would Love to Hear Readers Tips as Well

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Tags: Main

Okay, so today I was doing some research online and my goal was to do another article on working the upper chest. This was inspired by an excellent post over on John Romaniello's blog. John put up an outstanding post about 3 creative exercises to work the heck out of your upper pecs (click to read that article). I was going to add in my 2 cents and expand upon this article, but something else happened. John mentioned that one of his friends, Bret Contreras, did EMG testing for various chest exercises to find out which exercises targeted parts of the chest best. The results were surprising!

[I went to see Iron Man 2 this past weekend with my girlfriend and saw the previews for the A-Team. Bradley Cooper plays "Face" and it looks like he got in pretty darn good shape for that role. I have a feeling people are going to ask how to get in the Bradley Cooper look in the near future. Anyway, all the characters look cast well and I'm excited for this movie.]

I Went Over to the Dark Side to Find This Research
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Tags: Muscle Building, barbell curl, chest exercises, delts, free weights, incline press, military press, nervous system, resistance bands, upper chest, upper pecs

Back in January I launched a Beta release (just to my newsletter) of a muscle building course I created called "Visual Impact". I did my best to keep it low key and didn't post it on my blog or anything like that. My goal was to expose this course to a small group and get their feedback and then make an improved version and then create the final product. I sent out a survey a couple of months after this Beta release and to my delight, almost everyone who bought it was still following the program and getting solid results. This is practically unheard of when it comes to fitness information products. Most people start a program and 2-3 weeks later move on to the "next greatest thing". I am proud to say that wasn't the case with my program.

[A big focus of this program is adding muscle quickly, but not too much muscle. If you gain too much muscle it is hard to fit well into stylish clothes. Looking stylin' is just as important as adding muscle. Who wants to live in sweat pants or workout gear?]

A Three Phase 6 Month Muscle Building Course
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Tags: Main, hollywood look, muscle building course, muscle growth, muscle mass, visual impact, visual impact muscle building

I have never met anyone who stays as lean as Martin Berkhan does year round. In fact, most people think it is near impossible to stay below 6% body fat for more than a few days at a time. Martin has held at a steady 5-6% body fat for three years straight! Many people will immediately think it is just do to great genetics or a naturally fast metabolism, but they would be wrong. He was a chubby kid growing up and simply figured out a methodology of staying lean without depriving himself of good food. He outlines these methods on his outstanding blog, Lean Gains. Here is an exclusive guest article he wrote for Fitness Black Book.

[Yeah, I probably overdo the fire effects on this site. I just couldn't resist with the word "scorch" in the title.]

-by Martin Berkhan

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Tags: Diet Tips, body fat, metabolism, protein shake, weight loss

People don't talk enough about height and how it relates to body composition, calories burned, muscle gains, etc. I'm a tall guy at just a hair over 6'3", but I'm envious of shorter people at times. I figured why not get the discussion going about height. Using my mad graphic skillz (not really), I came up with this masterpiece.

[Everyone knows Chewbacca, but only the true geeks like me know what's happening on the right. A young Gary Coleman posing with "Twiki" from Buck Rogers. Twiki carried a computer around his neck named "Dr. Theopolis". Buck Rogers is worth watching if you get the chance...for the cheesy disco music and bad special effects. Hilarious!]

Height and Plays a Large Role in Lean Mass
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Tags: Main, bench press, body composition, body fat, body fat percentage, lean mass, muscle mass, muscular

Calling my lower back "dodgy" is an understatement. I suffered a major back injury close to 20 years ago. Although, I have figured out how to stop it from hurting, it is still a major weak link. I avoid certain activities and I have to be overly cautious, otherwise I am asking for a nagging injury followed by 3 months of major pain. I used to think just "not hurting" was an acceptable level, but my spine is simply too fragile for my liking. Instead of just settling, I plan on working my butt off to make it a strong point. I believe back pain is the most miserable thing in the world and hopefully these tips help people with this nagging problem.

[Car accidents account for a large percentage of back injuries. There are ways to strengthen your spinal column to make it less likely to experience trauma in an accident.]

Stuart McGill Solved My Back Pain Problem for Good!
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Tags: Injuries

I was thinking about something the other day when killing myself on the stepmill machine doing intervals at the highest setting. Am I able to push hard at the highest setting because I am in decent shape, or is it just because I am a sicko who can push through pain? Part of me thinks that I am just good at pushing hard even when my body tells me to back off. In the spring and summer I play tennis for hours with a good friend of mine who is the same age and works out year round as well. We are both winded and drenched with sweat within 30 minutes of playing, but push on. Again I ask myself, am I in good shape or do I simply have a high pain tolerance. Let's discuss this topic in more detail. I don't have a concrete answer, but would love to explore this idea with you guys and get your feedback as well.

[Just another cool photo that has nothing to do with the article. I didn't want to show people in pain, plus this photo blends in well with the colors and shades of my site.]

Let's Talk About "Linda" and Her Struggles With Weight Loss
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Tags: Interval Training, HIT, metabolism, treadmill, walking

They don't make butt kickin' TV shows like Kung Fu anymore. The cool thing about growing up in the 70's and 80's was that everyone watched the same TV shows. Heck, we only had 3 main channels, a public channel, and one or two local channels back then. It sounds strange, but I kind of miss that. When we wasted time, we all wound up watching the same TV shows. The bummer was that most houses only had one TV set. I grew up with two sisters and we made TV show deals. They would let me watch old episodes of "Batman", "Kung Fu" and "Planet of the Apes" movies, if they could watch "Little House on the Prairie" and "Donnie and Marie" (brutal). My dad liked to watch "Lawrence Welk" (even more brutal). Anyway, this post really isn't about TV. "It is about patience in getting six pack abs, young grasshopper!"

[If you guys haven't watched some old Kung Fu episodes, you are missing out. There are some big life lessons to be learned. This is right up there with Yoda's lesson to Luke Skywalker: "Do or Do Not, There is No Try".]

"Can You Tell Me How to Get Six Pack Abs?"
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Tags: Six Pack Abs

Like many people, I am a big-time movie fan. I appreciate great acting and Leonardo DiCaprio is quite possibly my favorite actor. My two favorite movies of his are "The Beach" and "Catch Me If You Can" (I own both of those movies). "Blood Diamond" is also right up there. Anyway, Leonardo DiCaprio's personal trainer for "The Beach" tracked me down and asked if I wanted to do a Q&A session. What is cool about his story is that he was flown to Thailand and only had a little over 2 weeks to whip everyone into to top shape. Leo needed to drop 17 pounds in roughly two weeks. Cornel explains how he accomplished this feat, along with other cool things about his experience, in this interview.

[I like it when actors like DiCaprio do volunteer work for causes they believe in. One of his causes is to save polar bears from extinction. I like it when people use their fame and celebrity status to help out. If it improves something, even just a little, it is worth it in my opinion.]

A Bit of Background on Celebrity Trainer – Cornel Chin
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Tags: Hollywood Fitness, aerobic exercise, bodyweight exercises, circuits, cornel chin, leonardo dicaprio, personal trainer, the beach