My perfect day involves an 85-90 degree day at a beach (preferably with waves), my girlfriend, other friends, a lounge chair, a cooler full of sandwiches and beer. Honestly…I could repeat that day 10,000 times on various beaches of the world an never get bored. The thing is, I'm a fair skinned German-Irish-Scandinavian mixed breed. I've always felt a bit of guilt for going out in the sun, because we've been trained that it is like playing Russian Roulette with skin cancer. Fair skinned people like me are especially warned to avoid sun exposure. Is that sound advice?

[Why am I writing about sun tanning in December? Well...this blog has a large readership from Australia and New Zealand. I figured I would do a summer post that would match their seasons for once.]

Should You Be Worried If You Sport a Tan In the Summer?
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When I was first training back in the late 80's I assumed that to build bigger muscles I would have to constantly lift heavier and heavier weights. To a certain extent that is true, but there are ways to make a lighter weight "work" your muscles much harder than normal. The guy with the most impressive chest I have ever seen in person never benched more than 205 pounds. He told me that anything heavier "made his joints hurt"…so he used lighter weight to get the job done. This past summer I got stronger than ever at chin ups and shoulder pressing, but my elbows began to hurt and I decided to mix in a 3-4 month period of light lifting to give my joints a much-needed break. I'll outline what I'm doing.

[Lifting weights should be a healthy long-term deal. If you are feeling any joint pain, then you might want to give your joints a rest and go light for a few months.]

High Reps to Fatigue = One Way to Build Muscle Mass
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Today, I'd like to look at the idea of focusing on just one exercise per muscle group, compared to using a variety of exercises. If you have never tried a workout where you do 8-10 sets of the same exercise, you will probably be in for a shock. This is a tough workout! It looks basic in nature, but is simply another tweak you can add to your routine if you are at a sticking point. I'll discuss how limiting your exercises down to one per muscle group can help with both increasing strength as well as muscle size.

["There Can Be Only One!" I Had to throw in a quote from one of the best movies ever. I don't care if Rotten Tomatoes gave Highlander 67%...this movie is awesome! The Queen Song they play while flashing back to MacLeod's wife growing old and dying while he stays young...gives me chills every time. Brilliant stuff!]

Probably Not Something I'd Recommend Long Term
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Starvation mode is a term that gets thrown around loosely. Many people believe that too little protein or too few of calories in a day will cause loss of muscle mass. What if I told you that it is extremely difficult to go into starvation mode until you get down to 5% body fat(10% for women)? Brad Pilon and John Barban have given me permission to give you access to the first 15 minutes of one of their paid recordings: "Starvation Mode". Brad and John discuss surprising findings of a military study, where they purposely tried to get the soldiers to lose muscle and get into starvation mode. They found it took extreme conditions to reach this point.

[Just a cool vintage restaurant sign. This reminds me of something you would see on a road trip in Nevada or Arizona on a 2 lane highway, hours from the big cities.]

Brad and John Show You How to Get Into Starvation Mode?
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I roughly remember my first HIIT cardio workout. I had read an article in Muscle Media 2000, written by Shawn Phillips (in 1993 I think) describing a way to do cardio to burn fat like crazy. When I went to my gym and performed HIIT on the treadmill, people gave me some crazy looks. I've been experimenting and studying up on HIIT cardio ever since…and after close to 20 years, I'm still in learning mode. In this post I'm going to break apart a study that compares short 30 seconds intervals with longer 3 minute intervals. This study found that the 30 second intervals could be more effective than 3 minute intervals. I'd like to give you some practical ways on how to use the findings in this study.

[Rugby is an example of the effect that sprint intervals have on the body. Obviously these guys train in a number of ways, but the tempo of the game contributes to low body fat levels displayed by all of the players.]

Greater Calorie Burning With Less Pain?
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Compound Exercise Overload is a technique I recently heard about through Nick Nilsson's Newsletter. While I have different goals than Nick, I respect him for being a trail blazer and thinking outside the box. I subscribe to a bunch of fitness newsletters to see who actually delivers solid info, and so far I'm pleased with the info I've received from Nick. Good stuff! In this post I want to discuss one of his muscle growth techniques in more detail. Nick calls it "compound exercise overload". I haven't tried it yet, but it looks to me like it would work extremely well.

[I wish I would have known about this technique when I started out. I struggled with the bench press for quite a few years and this would have helped me avoid lengthy sticking points.]

The Story of "Bear" – The King of Our College Gym!
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I'm going to do something I haven't ever done before on this blog. I'm basically going to do half a post, then send you over to another site to get the rest of the info. I'm not an expert on this subject and just want to guide you in the right direction. If you think "4 X 7" means 4 sets of 7 reps, then you would be mistaken. It is referring to something quite a bit different than that.

[I learned about 4 X 7 periodization from my buddy Ryan. I had a beer with him earlier this year in Seattle and he told me of his plans to move to Malta. I thought he was crazy until I saw some of his photos. This place is amazing!]

What is the 4 X 7 Model of Periodization?
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