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How hard should I work out?
It really depends on your goals. It depends on how frequently you're working out, and what you're trying to do. I personally think working out at a higher intensity is more beneficial. It's going to result in different hormone release, and it's typically going to result in a better workout.
The key thing is work as hard as you possibly can without overloading joints, or overloading what you're capable of, so that you're creating overuse injuries. Anyway, how hard should you workout? Well, you should pretty much be working out with resistance to a failure point.
Remember, failure and weight training is the ultimate success. If I'm doing ten reps, I should use a weight. I'm going to typically warm up a set or two, then I'm going to go to my work set. I have a one or two warm-up sets and a work set, and that's when I'm going to be able to push it hard. Again, I'm going to facilitate a proper warm up, proper muscle activation, all those sorts of things. And then you can have a hard workout.
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Should I lift weights as fast as possible?
Well, it all depends. If you're trying to train for something sport specific, lifting weights as fast as possible, depending on what the movement is, will have more transfer over to your sport. If you're obviously doing a big, slow movement like a squat or a dead lift, that's not going to make you a faster athlete on a football field, or a basketball court, or a volleyball court.
Depending on what you're doing, lifting it fast does create a different muscle response. But no, as a whole, lifting as fast as possible is not what you want to do. You want to use controlled tempo with good positioning and proper form.
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I want to start my muscle growth by doing push-ups too often. Is it okay to do push-ups daily?
It all depends on how many push-ups you're doing. If you're some kind of beast and you're trying to bang out 10 sets of 50 every day, that's maybe a little different. But doing push-ups every day is typically going to result in overdeveloped deltoids, pec major, pec minor, and that's probably not going to do a whole lot for your posture. It will tighten you up and likely result in overuse injuries.
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What do you consider a rest day? Is it a day without weights, cardio or both?
A rest day would definitely be free of resistance work and aerobic, cardio-based work because you're not resting if you're doing those things. Avoiding both of those things would be a rest day. If you're under a high training load, a lot of resistance work, going and getting a very thorough hour and a half to two and a half hour deep tissue massage is going to do great things for accelerating muscle recovery.
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Can you explain the double crunch?
A double crunch is pretty simple. You're going to crunch forward flexion & reverse flexion simultaneously. Usually, that's hands to the side of the head, or elbows pointing straight forward. I like to have clients place their hands on their temple. You're trying to get those knees and elbows together but moving the arms and the elbows, and your body only with your trunk, not just folding yourself in half.
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Okay. Is it better to do cardio before or after lifting weights?
Doing cardiovascular training after lifting weights is shown to be more beneficial. The body's primary source of energy is glycogen, and what you want to do is save the glycogen for the resistance work. You want to be able to have that pump, engorging the muscle when you're training. You burn the glycogen by lifting weights at a lower intensity and then the cardiovascular work allows you to burn off stored body fat.
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Okay, can or should I add anything to the supplemental weightlifting routine?
If you're concerned about muscle gain, you're really going to be focusing more on your hormonal levels and your nutrition. If you're concerned about muscle gain and definition, it's about getting lean, and extra weight training isn't what's going to get you lean. You have to spend the time and focus on your nutrition. You'll get better results and your body's going to thank you for it.
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How much exercise should I do?
For years, Fitness Mojo's program has been three 30 minute workouts, three times a week, and sound nutrition. We've had some incredible stories. Some people that have just lost tremendous amounts of body fat completely retransformed their health or fitness, their whole life.
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How much should I exercise?
I've been recommending the jump start. Work out six days in a row when you start, and they don't have to be long, intense workouts, just the fact that you're going, you'll start getting yourself into a habit, and you'll create momentum. You'll find that you'll want to get back to it the second week. And you'll feel better working out every day.
Usually, that's three to four days of resistance training followed with two to three days of cardiovascular work. Obviously, if you only did three days of resistance-based work, you wouldn't want to do three days of the other work, but a six-day routine. And if you want to continue to get really good results over a short period of time, exercising more frequently for a shorter period of time is going to be more beneficial.
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What types of exercise are better for weight loss?
Resistance training is king when it comes to weight loss, anything with multi-joint or compound movements, or circuit style trainings where you're moving from one muscle group to an opposing muscle group. Let's just say, if I worked the chest the next set might be the back. But I would also look at lower body, upper body. Bigger multi-joint exercises are the best types of exercise for weight loss. If you can squat, curl, and press something, think about what you're doing instead of just a squat, rest, squat, rest, repeat. Using more muscle groups at one time you'll see that you're going to be very fatigued, and that's going to be better for weight loss now.
Don't put all your focus on weight loss; you need to focus on losing fat. You don't want to lose lean mass that gives you definition and tone. You want to lose the fat over the lean muscle!
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Okay, what if I don't have time to exercise 60 minutes a day?
You shouldn't be worried about exercising 60 minutes a day. 30-45 minutes is more than adequate. Fitness Mojo specializes in 30 minute training sessions. We've had people drop over a hundred pounds with 30 minute training sessions, three to four times a week. I think you're wasting your time with 60 minute workouts unless you're really an advanced exerciser or you're training for strength which is a completely different style of training, and when you're training for strength you'll need more rest and more time to complete workouts.
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Where do I start if I've never exercised?
Well, one of the things I always tell people starting out is to do body weight movements. Things like push-ups, abdominal work, different yoga poses, squat positions, lunges, hamstring work, all that kind of stuff. These are all the things that are going to start producing results. And if you've never exercised, do yourself a favour and come to Fitness Mojo, and work with one of our strength coaches.
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What is BMI and why is it useful?
BMI is one of the most useless things I've ever seen, and it's never really accurate. For most athletes the BMI measure is going to rate them as obese because their lean mass to fat is way off. Muscle mass is two and a half times as dense as body fat, so the height and weight scales are ridiculous.
I had a college team mate, who was about 6'2", 265lbs, and he was probably 8-9% body fat, maybe 10% body fat. He was very lean, very fit. I remember his mom couldn't get him insurance, and he was 21 years old. He was talking to the insurance guy who kept saying no, we won't issue a policy because you're obese according to the BMI. And then he goes into their office and says, "Do I look obese?" And obviously, he wasn't. But for anybody who's typically a little more muscular, and a little more fit the BMI will be inaccurate.
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Does exercise help you lose weight?
Yes, absolutely! But the key thing is exercise and nutrition together that will really help you lose fat which is what you want. Our programs at Fitness Mojo teach you proper exercise and nutrition to train your body and actually change the metabolism which happens by gaining more lean mass.
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Why has my weight loss plateaued?
Because your body's gotten used to whatever you're doing and it's not changing, or you're not doing something right with your nutrition. Maybe you are working out really well and you're changing your program all the time, but your weight loss has plateaued. You've got to change up your routine, and you've got to do some tweaks in the diet. You may need to increase your calories.
You can't eat too much, you can't eat too little. You've got to stay right in the middle. An example is to think of a football field. The field itself is the ideal zone. If you go to one end zone, you're going to gain weight. And if you go to the other end zone, you're going to lose weight.
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What if I'm physically unable to exercise due to a medical condition?
Then you better really eat clean. That's the key, and you should be eating good, sound nutrition. It should be a part of everyone's diet. But if you're physically unable to exercise, definitely, you should be focusing on eating as healthy as you possibly can. Lean protein, vegetables, according to what your medical condition is.
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Should I lift weights?
Yeah, that's a no brainer. It stimulates hormones, increases metabolism. You absolutely have to lift weights. It's the fountain of youth. It improves bone density. It's phenomenal for people.
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What is interval training?
Interval training is basically more like sprint training, like the way athletes do. Intervals are essentially short, very high, very intense period of exercise followed by a slow, steady phase.
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Will eating protein help build muscle?
Absolutely, protein is essential for building lean mass and that's what you want.
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Will I burn more calories if I exercise on an empty stomach?
I've read information that says yes. I've read information that says no. You won't burn more calories. You're going to burn what you burn. You might utilize or burn more fat on an empty stomach. But remember you don't want to be working out with a full stomach either.
