After thinking about it, I came up with Six Reasons the Gym SUCKS:

1.) Everyone else is going to the gym. And they suck.
Did you ever notice that when you look around the gym, everybody is doing the same thing? Like so many sheep, mindlessly plodding away with the misinformation from fitness magazines. People just go to the gym and do whatever everybody else is doing.

Have you ever noticed that when you walk into the gym and you see the same women on the same treadmills, doing the same 4 mile run, that they STILL look the same as they did 5 months ago.

I am sure you have seen the women spending hours at a time on ellipticals, bikes, and treadmills- sadly getting nowhere fast. Listen up ladies- you NEED to start doing some resistance training and cut those cardio sessions down to 20 minutes of intense interval training to get rid of the hip, thigh, and belly fat that is spilling out of your jeans.

And then there are also those wanna-be meathead guys trying to build their mirror muscles (abs, chest, biceps) with the Mr. Gargantuous (professional bodybuilder) routine and super supplement. “I switched my routine up from 4 sets of 10 to 5 sets of 8. Muscle confusion!”

Did you notice that you are exactly the same as you were a year ago? It ain’t the muscle that’s confused, son.

2.) No sunshine sucks.
I am still trying to wrap my cerebellum around the act of driving to a building, parking your car, going inside and getting on a machine to walk for 30-45 minutes. Get outside! If you want to walk, walk around the block, go to the park, whatever, but please stop your hamster wheel!

3.) Gym Memberships suck.
Paying money for a place to work out isn’t a bad thing, but the way gyms set up their business model is designed to sell you a membership, not get you the results you want. If you want personal guidance or a program, you have to pay extra.

Epic Boot Camp doesn’t hold you to a contract because we believe that you should have the freedom to make your own fitness choices. Furthermore we are confident that we provide the best fitness programs designed to meet your needs and for you to see the best results.

4.) Machines suck.
They lock you in to a path that is not a natural movement. I don’t care if it is “state of the art”, if it is not a movement that you use in everyday life, it could be more effective. Plus, do you really want to be sitting in some dudes sweaty butt print?

Machines force you to create a dependence on them and the gym. If you are used to using machines, you feel lost if you travel and can’t access the same equipment. In most cases, people figure “what the hell, I’ll just take some time off until I get back home since I don’t have any gym access out here.” Next thing you know it is 6 months later and you have gained 12lbs.

5.) The music sucks
Most of the time, the music in the gym makes me want to throw up. I don’t know which is worse- an endless loop of the Rocky IV soundtrack or Coldplay, but neither one of them works to get me gassed up for a workout.

6.) “Personal Trainers” suck.
OK, not all personal trainers suck, I know a lot of very good personal trainers, but I consider them to be coaches or instructors, not trainers. I have said it before: You train a dog not to pee on your rug, you coach or teach a person to reach a physical goal.

When you go to the typical gym for personal training, you enter a factory. They don’t really care if your reach your goals, nor do they have the desire to build a lasting relationship with you. They need to hit their quota- and YOU are just another number for them.

Our trainers are dedicated to you, your results, performance, and happiness. If we can’t show you positive results, then we have failed you. Your body is our walking billboard of success. Nothing is better than hearing mothers talk about how they have reverted back to their pre-baby weight, or campers who have made life changing weight losses like 65lbs.

With no clue about physiology or effective program design, many personal trainers are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. I know of trainers who get their routines for clients from the current muscle magazine!

If you are a “personal trainer” and you put a client on a treadmill during the time they have paid you for, you are stealing that person’s money and violating their trust. If you take offense to this, you are probably one of the sucky trainers. Prove me wrong.

If you need the support and motivation of a workout buddy or don’t want to work out on your own, the typical gym falls WAY short in providing a results-based, cost-effective solution. So how do you get in the best shape of your life if it isn’t by joining a gym?

Find a fitness boot camp (like Epic Boot Camp) in your area that creates a fit community- a culture of success. It’s like a support group of like-minded people focused on success. You become like the people who surround you. I know a bunch of great boot camp and kettlebell instructors all over the world- people that I do business coaching for that can get you better results for less than a third the cost of typical personal training rates.

Get out of the gym. Bust out of your comfort zone. Live it up!

I borrowed and edited this article from the Nashville Kettlebell Bootcamp.

Binge eating sucks. But what drives us to do that? And how we can stop it?

Disclaimer: Now let me get the legal beagle mumbo jumbo out of the way…I’m not a doctor, and if you have a serious eating problem you should talk to a trained health professional…there’s probably even a medical definition of binge eater that I don’t know about…

…so for our purposes, we’ll refer to binge eating as anything that involves eating too much junk and making you feel guilty.

…And if you are just one of those folks who goes 37 days in a row without binge eating and then – POW – it shows up and kicks you in the butt…leaving you feeling guilty, frustrated, and upset, then let’s help you out.

Personally, there is no better common-sense tip for avoiding binge eating than…

Keeping the junk out of the house.

Easier said than done in most homes, I know, and heck, I find myself with my hand in the cookie jar more than I’d like. But hey, how else am I going to eat ice cream other than by making home-made ice cream sandwiches?

So do your best on that one, but if you can’t keep ALL the treats out of the house, here are some more tips…

This is another superficial one…but you just need to stay active and find something else to do besides look through the cupboards for the 3rd time this evening.

Don’t use food as a reward or just something to do out of boredom.

Go for a walk. Run some errands. Treat yourself to a bath or download some tunes. Buy a punching bag. Put on some music and dance.

And a couple of other practical tips…if you are going to binge, do so by overeating fruits and vegetables. And also, when you are done eating, brush your teeth, makes eating less appealing for a while.

Okay, those are good, but it is time to get a little deeper.

You are probably binge eating for some emotional reason.

One person recommended keeping a diary and writing down how you feel when you eat. I think this is great advice that most folks should do even if they don’t binge eat. Just do this for a week and you’ll get a really good understanding of why you are eating.

Were you hungry? Bored? Tired? Stressed? Anxious?

The May 2009 issue of Men’s Health magazine reports that anxiety causes many people to overeat sugar. If that is the case with you, then you need to find a way to deal with the anxiety…and that will take care of the overeating.

I’m also reading an interesting book called, “The Culture Code”, and the author argues that most overweight folks overeat because they are mentally “checking out”. Something emotional is driving them to turn to eating so they can escape other problems.

If that is the case, and its serious, then again, professional help is in order. Either way, I think tracking your mood when you eat is a great way to identify the source of your binges, and you’ll be able to build some powerful routines and possibly overcome binge eating.

Some other “deep” responses I received on twitter had to do with the relationship we have with food. How do we view food? As a fuel? As something to be enjoyed with others? As a necessity? Or as one of the major comforts and joys in our lives?

Do we have the POWER over food or does food have the power over us?

Do we practice extreme self-denial that ends up being counterproductive because it leads to binge eating? And if so, then how can we get into a balanced eating lifestyle that allows treats but without binge eating all the time?

Another reader recommended “Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Roesch”. I haven’t read it, but they said it was a great book that touches on all aspects of unhealthy food habits. Definitely a good resource for those of you who want more info. If you read it, let me know some big lessons.

And if you have any tips on avoiding binge eating, please let me know below.

1.) Everyone else is going to the gym. And they suck.
Did you ever notice that when you look around the gym, everybody is doing the same thing? Like so many sheep, mindlessly plodding away with the misinformation from fitness magazines. People just go to the gym and do whatever everybody else is doing.

Have you ever noticed that when you walk into the gym and you see the same women on the same treadmills, doing the same 4 mile run, that they STILL look the same as they did 5 months ago.

I am sure you have seen the women spending hours at a time on ellipticals, bikes, and treadmills- sadly getting nowhere fast. Listen up ladies- you NEED to start doing some resistance training and cut those cardio sessions down to 20 minutes of intense interval training to get rid of the hip, thigh, and belly fat that is spilling out of your jeans.

And then there are also those wanna-be meathead guys trying to build their mirror muscles (abs, chest, biceps) with the Mr. Gargantuous (professional bodybuilder) routine and super supplement. “I switched my routine up from 4 sets of 10 to 5 sets of 8. Muscle confusion!”

Did you notice that you are exactly the same as you were a year ago? It ain’t the muscle that’s confused, son.

2.) No sunshine sucks.
I am still trying to wrap my cerebellum around the act of driving to a building, parking your car, going inside and getting on a machine to walk for 30-45 minutes. Get outside! If you want to walk, walk around the block, go to the park, whatever, but please stop your hamster wheel!

3.) Gym Memberships suck.
Paying money for a place to work out isn’t a bad thing, but the way gyms set up their business model is designed to sell you a membership, not get you the results you want. If you want personal guidance or a program, you have to pay extra.

Epic Boot Camp doesn’t hold you to a contract because we believe that you should have the freedom to make your own fitness choices. Furthermore we are confident that we provide the best fitness programs designed to meet your needs and for you to see the best results.

4.) Machines suck.
They lock you in to a path that is not a natural movement. I don’t care if it is “state of the art”, if it is not a movement that you use in everyday life, it could be more effective. Plus, do you really want to be sitting in some dudes sweaty butt print?

Machines force you to create a dependence on them and the gym. If you are used to using machines, you feel lost if you travel and can’t access the same equipment. In most cases, people figure “what the hell, I’ll just take some time off until I get back home since I don’t have any gym access out here.” Next thing you know it is 6 months later and you have gained 12lbs.

5.) The music sucks
Most of the time, the music in the gym makes me want to throw up. I don’t know which is worse- an endless loop of the Rocky IV soundtrack or Coldplay, but neither one of them works to get me gassed up for a workout.

6.) “Personal Trainers” suck.
OK, not all personal trainers suck, I know a lot of very good personal trainers, but I consider them to be coaches or instructors, not trainers. I have said it before: You train a dog not to pee on your rug, you coach or teach a person to reach a physical goal.

When you go to the typical gym for personal training, you enter a factory. They don’t really care if your reach your goals, nor do they have the desire to build a lasting relationship with you. They need to hit their quota- and YOU are just another number for them.

Our trainers are dedicated to you, your results, performance, and happiness. If we can’t show you positive results, then we have failed you. Your body is our walking billboard of success. Nothing is better than hearing mothers talk about how they have reverted back to their pre-baby weight, or campers who have made life changing weight losses like 65lbs.

With no clue about physiology or effective program design, many personal trainers are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. I know of trainers who get their routines for clients from the current muscle magazine!

A lot of trainers really don’t know what they’re doing. Typically, if you go to a gym, you’re in a “fitness factory.” The gym wants you to go in, stay a little bit, and then go out. They don’t care if you reach your fitness goals and they don’t want to build a relationship with you. They just want their quota, and you help fill that quota.

So instead of using a trainer that gets paid $80 an hour and who may or may not be truly qualified, a better alternative is to join a boot camp for fitness that’ll develop your community as a fit entity in its entirety invest a whole lot less money. At Epic Boot Camp we guarantee you will not only see but also feel the difference in less than half the time you would spend at the gym.

Do the math- trainers will try to get you to see them 1-3x a week. This equals $80-$240 a week or $320-$960 for 4-12 sessions in a month plus membership fees (around another $50) but with Epic Boot camp you will be investing around $15 dollars per session, thats $45 a week for a 3 day a week camp. That’s less than you would pay a trainer for 1 session! Now that is a no brainer!

If you are a “personal trainer” and you put a client on a treadmill during the time they have paid you for, you are stealing that person’s money and violating their trust. If you take offense to this, you are probably one of the sucky trainers. Prove me wrong.

If you need the support and motivation of a workout buddy or don’t want to work out on your own, the typical gym falls WAY short in providing a results-based, cost-effective solution. So how do you get in the best shape of your life if it isn’t by joining a gym?

Find a fitness boot camp (like Epic Boot Camp) in your area that creates a fit community- a culture of success. It’s like a support group of like-minded people focused on success. You become like the people who surround you. I know a bunch of great boot camp and kettlebell instructors all over the world- people that I do business coaching for that can get you better results for less than a third the cost of typical personal training rates.

Get out of the gym. Bust out of your comfort zone. Live it up!

Better Fitness, Better Health, Better Life!

I borrowed and edited this article from the Nashville Kettlebell Bootcamp. Visit their site…there is some good information on there.

When people ask me what I “do” and I tell them that I am a personal
trainer, they automatically start spewing excuses as to why they are
out of shape and unhappy with their bodies. I don’t have to ask a
thing. I am suddenly a shrink. Personal facts surface quickly and
without reserve. Mind you, all I have said is that I am a personal
trainer. Suddenly I’m their life long best friend. “I don’t have time…
I have kids… I go to school… my job wears me out… I just have no
energy… I used to workout…” I’ve heard every excuse in the book.

One day I was talking with my neighbor, and like many conversations
that seem to find me, she starts to go on and on about how she is
overweight, out of shape, unhappy, etcetera, etcetera. After about ten
minutes of attempting to justify her lifestyle, I simply say, “You
have to make it a priority.” Something clicked. She was silent, (which
is rare for this woman). We have lived next door to each other for
about a year now. Not even two hours after I said those words, she was
making her first of many appointments with me.

She made it a priority. Like taking care of her children, her husband,
her job…Finally, she made her health a priority. She didn’t just make
a time to workout, she was suddenly empowered. Her voice automatically
had more confidence. She made a healthy lifestyle choice for herself,
and it’s like the world was completely different, just like that.

After one month of dedication, her body fat dropped 7%, her strength
significantly increased, and her energy skyrocketed. She had more to
contribute to life; more energy and strength to play with her
children, more confidence in anything she attempted, she controlled
stress better, and her husband even told her she looked skinny. She
made it a priority, and the payoff was more than she bargained for.

Her program was inspired by Pavel Tsatouline’s book, From Russia with
Tough Love, Kettlebell Workout for the Femme Fatale. She met with me
three times a week for a program based on two basics of lifts: squats
and dead lifts. All additional lifts introduced into her program were
based on the mechanics of these fundamental drills. My client was new
to this hard-style of training, so we focused on total body tension
and moving the weight safely from start to finish. This is personally
important to me, because as a trainer I want the reassurance that my
client can safely and effectively workout by themselves.

In addition to basic drills, I would throw in a modified Department of
Energy “Man-Maker,” every now and then for a good “cardio session.”
The DOE Man-Maker consists of a series of Kettlebell snatches
alternated with running. I modified the snatches to swings and the run
to either rowing or some type of walk with the bells. The Kettlebell
walks included anything from farmer’s walks to double overhead walks.

This client, like many, wanted more “ab work.” So, we worked on things
like get up sit-ups, circle sit-ups, and power breathing crunches at
both the beginning and end of our sessions. If a lift is a priority,
it should be done first in the series. To further drive home the fact
that I acknowledge her requests, we added the ab drills to the end of
her workouts, as well. (Needless to say, she has not made any more
personal requests.)

In the end, it was the client’s dedication to, and commitment at each
session that improved her overall quality of life. She made her health
a priority, and it ultimately paid off in all other aspects of her
life. If it’s important to you, you have to make it a priority. It’s
your choice.

By Ben Kallen

No matter what your age, body type, or fitness level, we’re pretty sure one of your main workout goals is to improve your abs. And why not? A flat midsection, with or without a visible six-pack, is the ultimate symbol of being fit and lean. (And yes, it looks great at the beach.) But it’s not just a matter of vanity—a strong core helps stabilize your entire body.

Still, whatever you’re doing to get fit, there’s always room for improvement where the core is concerned. Here are five tips to help you to get those great abs faster than ever:

1. Work your entire core. Your “core” (the trunk muscles of your abdomen, lower back, and pelvis) is a whole system that supports your body as you stand up straight, perform everyday activities, and work out. And it’s important to strengthen all these muscles, not just the rectus abdominis (the main “six-pack” muscles targeted by crunches). At the very least, you should strengthen the spinal erectors of the lower back to balance out your abs, which will help your posture and reduce the risk of back pain. Think of total-core training as increasing your functional fitness—meaning you won’t just look better, but you’ll also be able to do things better.
2. Take it slow. When you’re doing crunches or other ab-focused exercises, it’s easy to speed up and lose proper form, especially when you start to get tired. Either you let momentum carry you through much of the movement or you pull yourself up with your back and shoulders. But you’ll get the most benefit (and the least chance of injury) from your workout if you concentrate on measured, controlled movements. And keep the abdominals contracted the entire time. After all, they’re the ones that should be doing the work. (Doing some Pilates-style movements, in which you lift your upper body to a count of 8—is a good way to train yourself to slow it down.) When you can’t do any more reps with the proper form, it’s time to stop.
3. Don’t overdo it. If you really want great abs, you may be tempted to grind out crunch after crunch to the exclusion of other exercises, or to do more ab-centered workouts than your fitness program recommends. But directly working your abs too often can do more harm than good. Like any muscle, the abdominals need to recover between workouts. If you find you aren’t improving the number of reps you can do or the amount of weight you can handle, that’s a sign that you’re overtraining, and you need to cut back.
4. Don’t neglect the rest of your body. The more you work your entire body, the better it is for your abs. In fact, just about any full-body or compound movement, from push-ups to squats to deadlifts, takes a lot of ab effort. (That’s the whole point behind programs like  and the upcoming , which give you great core results without focusing on crunches.) What’s more, working your full body will burn many more calories and raise your metabolism, which is important, because you also need to . . .
5. Lose the fat to make your abs flat. No matter how much you strengthen your abdominal muscles, the only way to get a flat midsection is to lose body fat. That’s going to require a diet that’s high in protein and fiber, low in simple carbs, and full of bulky, nutrient-dense foods that keep you full with fewer calories—and of course, plenty of water. If you’re on a meal plan associated with a particular workout, make sure you’re really following it and not fudging here and there. (Keeping a food diary can help.) When you combine an effective full-body workout with a proper diet, getting the flat abs you’ve always wanted is just a matter of time.

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When was the last time that you got excited about doing some cardio? Doing traditional forms of cardio such as riding an exercise bike or running on a treadmill are about as exciting as watching a movie on the family channel. Lets face it one of the main reasons why people give up on cardio is similar to why smart people do not watch daytime television as both are beyond boring. Moreover, with regular cardio it takes too long to see results to persevere through the boredom. Do not believe me? Take a trip down to your local gym and look at the people in an aerobics class. Now go back in a month and see if you notice any physique composition differences. See what I mean? Fortunately there are several alternatives that offer more variety, are more challenging, and produce faster results. I am going to cover three highly effective fat loss programs in this article: PHA, HOC, and the “Descending Sets” Program.

Lets start off the boring cardio revolt with PHA. PHA stands for Peripheral Heart Action. P.H.A is basically an intense form of circuit training in which you group several exercises together that work the entire body. Instead of pumping a lot of blood into one muscle, the goal according to John McCallum, author of “The Complete Keys To Progress”, “is to increase your circulation enormously without congesting your muscles. You pump blood through your muscles rather than just into them.” The keys with P.H.A training are to one focus on compound exercises and to move from one exercise to the next as quickly as possible. Feel free to take one-minute breaks in the beginning between each exercise and reduce the breaks gradually over time until you are not resting at all in between each set. P.H.A workouts usually start with two groups of circuits per workout. Do five rounds in group one and then five rounds in group two. I have met very few trainees that can handle this much volume initially. Thus, I would start with one group and build up to multiple groups from there. Here are some sample PHA workouts:

BEGINNER

Group 1:

• Dumbbell Clean and Military Press 6 reps
• Dumbbell Squat 10 reps
• Weighted Pull-up 6 reps
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r (left and right)
• Slow and Controlled Sit-up 10 reps (4 seconds up and 4 seconds down)

Here is how the program works. Do each exercise in Group One in circuit fashion. In other words, do one exercise after the other with short or no breaks. At the end of the sequence, take a one-minute break and then repeat four more times for a total of five rounds. If necessary, take one-minute breaks between each exercise and when you can do all five rounds with one-minute breaks, decrease the breaks to forty-five seconds. Work on getting down to no breaks in between each workout. At that point increase the weight on each exercise.

ADVANCED

Group 1:

• Incline Dumbbell Press 6 reps
• Barbell Squat 8 reps
• Barbell Bent-over Row 6 reps
• Stiff-legged Deadlift 8 reps
• Hanging Leg Raise 6 reps

Group 2:

• Dumbbell Clean and Military Press 6 reps
• Dumbbell Squat 10 reps
• Weighted Pull-up 6 reps
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r (left and right)
• Slow and Controlled Sit-up 10 reps (4 seconds up and 4 seconds down)

Do five rounds of Group 1 with one-minute breaks in between each set. Take a one-minute break after all five rounds have been completed and then move on to Group 2. Do five rounds of Group 2 with one-minute breaks. Decrease the breaks in between each exercise and work on getting down to no breaks between the exercises in each group. Continue to take a one to two minute break in between each group.

In addition to being an outstanding program for fat loss and muscular endurance, PHA is also effective for strength training. You cannot beat that. If fat loss and endurance are your main goals then try doing three PHA workouts per week. Take a day off in between each workout. For example, do the workouts on M-W-F. Avoid doing additional cardio on the days off. If your goal is strength and size then try doing two full body 5×5 workouts per week and two moderate PHA workouts per week. Moderate meaning no more than one group. Do the 5×5 workouts on Monday and Thursday and the PHA workouts on Tuesday and Friday.

Next, lets move on to HOC, which stands for High Octane Cardio. HOC is brutal and not for the faint of heart. I mean that literally and figuratively. If you have high blood pressure, you want to clear this program with your doctor as your heart rate is going to go through the roof with HOC training. HOC is based on a form of training that boxer’s use called “Roadwork.” Legendary boxers such as Muhammad Ali used to do “Roadwork” in order to get in great fighting shape. “Roadwork” is still a staple in the arsenal of today’s fighting elite. Here is how it works, go out for a jog and every fifty yards or so, drop down and do some bodyweight exercises such as push-ups and sit-ups. Crank out twenty-five reps and then get up immediately and start jogging again. After another fifty yards or so, drop down again and crank out some more bodyweight drills. This is a very efficient way to build up cardio and muscular endurance that will carry over to the ring. It is also an extremely effective method for fat burning. Regardless, you can increase the benefits of “Roadwork” tremendously by combining moderate aerobic training with high intensity aerobic training in the form of ballistic weight training. Ballistic weight training is a form of weight training in which weights are moved quickly and explosively. One obvious example is Olympic Weight Training. Of course, it would not be prudent to use exercises that are technically demanding such as Barbell Cleans and Barbell Snatches. However, ballistic exercises done with dumbbells or kettlebells are a fit assuming that you are familiar with exercise such as Dumbbell Cleans, Dumbbell Snatches and Dumbbell Swings. If not, get your form down with those exercises before doing them in the context of an HOC program. Here are some sample HOC Programs:

BEGINNER

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean and Push Press 10 reps l,r (left and right)

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Snatch 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean and Push Press 10 reps l,r (left and right)

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Snatch 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of jump roping at moderate pace
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean 10 reps l,r

Do each round back to back and then take a one-minute break before going to the next round. A round is one set of jump rope work and one ballistic exercise set. When you can do all eight rounds with one-minute breaks, decrease the breaks to forty-five seconds. Work on getting the breaks down to thirty seconds per round. If you really want to become a machine then work on getting the beaks down to zero. Just do not rush into it, crawl before you can run or you will be crawling after each workout. If you find this program too demanding, then switch to Richard Simmons’ “Sweating To The Oldies” workout. Just kidding, just increase the breaks between each round and take a break between the jump rope work and ballistic exercise work as well.

ADVANCED

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean and Push Press 10 reps l,r (left and right)

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Snatch 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean and Push Press 10 reps l,r (left and right)

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Snatch 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Swing 10 reps l,r

• One-minute of heavy bag work
• One-arm Dumbbell Clean 10 reps l,r

Really go at it with the heavy bag work, which by the way is a blast and very tiring as well. Throw some punches, kicks, bitch slap the bag a few times. You get the idea. Take a minute to catch your breath and then crank out the ballistic work set. Rest for thirty seconds and go right into another round. Work on getting the breaks down between the heavy bag work and ballistic exercise sets and in between each round. Ease into this one gradually. If your main goal is fat loss, do three HOC workouts per week and do one full body strength workout. For example do HOC on M-W-F and do one 5×5 full body workout on Saturday. Do two full body 5×5 workouts per week and two moderate HOC workouts per week if you want to train for size and strength and as a secondary goal increase muscular endurance. Just stick with six to eight rounds of HOC at a moderate intensity.

Finally, lets move right into the “Descending Sets Program.” I picked up this killer program from my friend Marc Lobliner. Here is how the program works. Pick a ballistic exercise such as Dumbbell Cleans, Dumbbell Swings, or Dumbbell Snatches. I prefer to do these exercises with kettlebells but Dumbbells will suffice if that is all you have. You just will not impress the opposite sex as much. Knock of a set of fifteen reps in the first set and then take a short break. Do another set of fifteen reps and take another short break. Then do a set of twelve reps. See where this is going? As the program continues the reps decrease and boy will you be glad that they are as you will be huffing and puffing like a locomotive after a few sets. Here are some sample programs:

BEGINNER

Pick the One-arm Dumbbell Swing and do the following set and rep scheme:

• Set 1: 15 reps l,r (left and right)
• Set 2: 15 reps l,r
• Set 3: 12 reps l,r
• Set 4: 12 reps l,r
• Set 5: 10 reps l,r
• Set 6: 10 reps l,r
• Set 7: 8 reps l,r
• Set 8: 8 reps l,r
• Set 9: 6 reps l,r
• Set 10: 5 reps l,r

Pick a weight that you can knock off twenty reps with. Take one-minute breaks between each set and work on getting the breaks down to thirty seconds. When you can do all ten sets with thirty-second breaks, increase the weight by five to ten pounds. This workout is a smoker but it can get a lot worse. Just try doing it with One-arm Kettlebell Snatches or better yet snatch your girlfriend, pun intended. Now that is brutal.

ADVANCED

After a few months of taking it easy with the beginner “Descending Sets Program”, it is time to take it up a notch. Start by picking a harder exercise such as Snatches or Clean and Push Presses. Now instead of doing one-arm work, do double work. In other words, have a dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand. Double Snatches are brutal so try doing Double Clean and Push Presses first and make sure you train on an empty stomach or you will end the workout on a forced empty stomach.

Do the following with Dumbbell Clean and Push Presses

• Set 1: 15 reps
• Set 2: 15 reps
• Set 3: 13 reps
• Set 4: 12 reps
• Set 5: 11 reps
• Set 6: 10 reps
• Set 7: 9 reps
• Set 8: 8 reps
• Set 9: 8 reps
• Set 10: 7 reps

Take one-minute breaks between each set and work on getting the breaks down to thirty seconds. When you can do all ten sets with thirty-second breaks, increase the weight by five to ten pounds. An option is to add a rep to keep adding reps to sets 3-10 until you are eventually doing 10×15 per workout. A worthy goal that will take some time and have a major payoff in serious fat loss and increased muscular endurance. Try adding two “Descending sets” workouts to your regimen per week if you wan to add some endurance and fat loss work to your program. If you main goal is fat loss, then try three “Descending Sets” workouts per week and one full body strength-training program per week. Again the 5×5 program is a good option.

The end of boring cardio programs is upon us. Three programs for trainees that are bored to death with standard cardio programs. Pick one of these programs and get to work. When you get tired of one program rotate it with another one. Be creative with these workouts and have a good time. If you find the programs too hard, do not worry you can always check out Richard Simmons’ ‘Sweating To The Oldies” program or pick up a tae-bo DVD at Target.