Comments on: Fitness Experts – Who is Right? Who is Wrong? Are you Confused?

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:58:58 +0000

When doing anearobic activity (sprinting or any heavy effort), your metabolism produces 2 ATP molecules (muscle fuel) for each oxygen atom and in aerobic activity it produces 38… which means aerobic metabolism is MUCH more efficient. So to burn a certain amount of calories, you need to jog for miles and miles, or you can just sprint a few hundred metres with HIIT.

By: Jason G

Jason G — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:21:59 +0000

Sarcoplasmic hypertropy occurs when the body performs body weight exercises in the six to fifteen rep range if adequate tension is created and you come close to failure. Since most athletic people can do more than twenty pushups it is unlikely that any sarcoplasmic hypertrophy will occur. However if you are currently doing between six and fifteen pullups then you will get sarcoplasmic hypertrophy if the above conditions are met. Its important to realize that high rep(over twenty reps) body weight exercises are particularly useless for creating hypertrophy. High rep body weight exercises can be good for endurance training for athletes and individuals who want overall conditioning.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:29:58 +0000

I have been coming to your site for a while and I have enjoyed your approach on working out to get lean and not look like the Hulk lol. Most of the sites on here talk about getting big, but you are rare in talking about the hollywood look.

I think you can always learn something new no matter how good you are in something

By: baz

baz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:45:53 +0000

Rusty

You talk about BOVA alot in your email, and being an australian myself i feel proud, even though i had never heard of him or had nothing to do with anything he preaches. I wanted to ask you if this guy looks physically like he knows what hes talking about. from what you share he sound like he knows what he is talking about but the best way to tell is is he uses his own methods on himself and has the body to prove it.

By: J.

J. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:31:36 +0000

Also, since most bodyweight exercises are not near the 1 rep max in terms of weight, and since people usually do more than 5 of them, wouldn't they generally lead to lots of muscle hypertrophy? But they don't seem to. I don't really understand this

By: J.

J. — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:27:22 +0000

Hi Rusty. I have been reading you articles for a while and really like your website. I have a few questions, but the only one I can remember right now is this one. Would it be good to alternate exercises that make the muscle bigger and ones that reduce the strength deficit throughout the course of one or two weeks? What I'm saying is, can I do one week of one exercise and then the next week do the other kind and keep switching off? And, if this works, could I switch off between hypertrophy and creating max tension every few days?

By: Alexis segura

Alexis segura — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:07:44 +0000

hi Rusty, once again from Mexico…I´m a little confused about my nutrition plan. I don´t know if a meal plan based on fruit and only fruit can help me keep my lean body.

In other order of ideas, have you seen the documentary about Greg Valentino and abuse/use of steroids? whats your opinion?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:54:12 +0000

Real experts are too humble to admit it!!

By: Shaun

Shaun — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:39:40 +0000

These are points that I talk about all the time. To summarize that.

- HIIT is always great
- 1+1 minds = 11
- And Martial arts or similar activities are great for providing overall fitness. especially for those under 16's who want to get fit and build muscle.

Oh… and as mentioned, online is king. Power of the communities

By: julissa Guerra

julissa Guerra — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:19:21 +0000

its all about the diet-eating right, i work out hard 4 days a week, its only when im spot on in my diet do i see changes in my body

By: Adam @ Order Carisoprodol Online

Adam @ Order Carisoprodol Online — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:22:10 +0000

Most of the people got confused on how to start there exercise when they search a huge amount of information from the web. I think the best part of the whole internet fitness community is that it's sort of its own living, breathing, organism, with everyone's personal insights put together. Thanks for the excellent info you have here it really has helped me a lot in understanding and in working for optimal fitness and health.

By: Jason the Caveman

Jason the Caveman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:16:20 +0000

Hey Rusty,

Your blog is my core site, and if links are here I just click on them to read about them. Whenever I loose motivation or i need a boost, I just come here and read your recently posted articles. It somehow always leads to me being more motivated to stay on track towards achieving my goals in fitness.

By: Jeffrey343

Jeffrey343 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:10:31 +0000

One other thing that is frustrating is that the fitness magazines – even the ones that I think are good – make getting fit seem sooooo easy. My wife has a subscription to Prevention and Women's Health, both which I think are good mags. I think the fitness advice is sound, but I think they oversell the results that you should expect. My wife is not going to take off those last five pounds or get a perfectly flat belly by performing six simple moves three times a week. It takes pretty hard work to get results like she wants. I will say that the diet advice in those mags seems very good, but the vast majority of it has become common knowledge over the past several years. At least there are photos of cute fit women in there…

By: Zlaja

Zlaja — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:55:22 +0000

I am 18 years old and I was reading about protein supplements, and from what i understood, protein supplements are anabolic also, just not steroids. I have not ever taken them out of principals and belief that i can get a good body naturally without taking them. But i have not achieved my goal, while my friends who do take it, have bulked up really fast. Do you think that protein supplements are necessary to achieve a "model body", or can i get it without them?

And just for clarification, when i said my friends bulked up, i meant that they have great definition and muscle mass, not like a bodybuilder but more like models. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Thanks,
Zlaja

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:55:10 +0000

Good advice! Focus on one site and use it as main source of advice. Still be experimental with routines but not too often (not once every week you know).

BTW, Alan Aragon is another great expert on nutrition along with Lyle McDonald hey did nice job calling out T-Nation on I,Bodybuilder program..

By: John Romaniello

John Romaniello — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:07:40 +0000

Great post, Rusty. I've been reading your stuff for a while – in general I happen to like a great majority of what you do.

In particular, I really enjoyed the comparison of training to martial arts disciplines. Excellent analogy.

Keep it up, looking forward to reading more

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:14:53 +0000

Hi there:

It is easy to get confused about how are you supposed to exercise, by the huge ammount of information you will find on the web.

Here is my comon sense advice for anyone who want to exercise:

1. Think first of what do you expect from training. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to lose fat? So you want to put on some muscles? Do you want to get stronger? Do you want a better overal conditioning? You want more of these at the same time?

After you know what you want train accordingly.

2. Think about how much time can you really dedicate to physical training every week. Choose a training plan which works in the time you are able to train.

3. If you want to understand what is right and what is wrong I strongly recommend to get back to basics and read a good book of " Exercise physiology" .

4. Keep in mind that there are more ways and differnt methods of achieving what you want , so find what you like and fits you more.

5. And last but not least:
Make physical exercise a lifetime habit .
Eat healthy every day.
Eliminate bad habits from your life: smoking, overdrinking, laziness

Train hard

By: Yash

Yash — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:35:00 +0000

He Rusty,
Great post and great message. I think the best part of the whole internet fitness community is that it's sort of it's own living, breathing, organism, with everyone's personal insights put together. This way, everyone can fond out what best suits them and form their own personal ideology and methodology to getting in shape. That's kind of what happened with me, and now I'm taking all the different tihngs i've learned and combining them into my viewpoint on my site. It's finally up btw, and I'll have a few more posts once exams are over. Thanks again for all your help, its the little things that get you sometimes, and it was nice to have someone experienced to refer to when things came up.

By: Primalfit

Primalfit — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:02:32 +0000

Hey Rusty,

Recently I became very frustrated that my college gym only has dumbbells and guided weight machines so I decided to look for different ways to get fit. The body weight exercises are great but I found something else cool too. I was out hiking near campus and I found an open area with a ton of rocks and boulders. Anyways, my new workout consists of rock deadlifts, rock squats from my rock squat rack lol…overhead rock throws, behind the back rock throws, rock shotput and rock overhead presses. I'm not even going to try a rock benchpress without someone else there to spot. It's awesome and so much fun! It's improving my grip and making my skin tougher. And instead of having to carefully put the weights back, I can just chuck them when I'm done with my set. For my deadlifts, I can add resistance with extra rocks as well. I am also trying rock sprints but they kick my butt hardcore. I lay out 4 or 5 rocks with different sizes each, sprint to them, pick them up, run back and drop them and continue til all rocks are moved.

I love this site, it's been on my favorites toolbar since I started getting lean and fit. In the last 6 months I've gone from 16% bodyfat to about 12 to 13% meanwhile increasing strength. I am getting to the point now where a lot more definition is starting to show in my groin/lower abs area. I follow the Warrior Diet 1 big meal a day approach but I switch it up every once in a while. I think breaking through plateaus has a lot to do with tricking your body and making it wonder wtf you are up to. I also switch between carnivore days and carb/protein days.

Thanks for the excellent info you have here it really has helped me a lot in understanding and in working for optimal fitness and health. I have one question. What kind of diet/exercise does it take to get the hard muscular look rather than the soft big bodybuilder look? Is it just leanness or muscle density? And if the latter, what exercises would increase the density? I am thinking strength endurance but with heavy weight instead of light but I'm not sure. I'd rather have a chiseled warrior look then a soft bodybuilder look. I am hating my non chiseled baby face..lol

Thanks for putting up a great site and helping a lot of people reach their goals!

-Craig

By: Monica

Monica — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:46:03 +0000

Rusty, I would like to hear your thoughts on endurance exercise, especially also HIIT, increasing so called AMPk which interferes with protein synthesis as well as strength gains. I read that it should be done far apart from strength training for that reason.