By Nick Nilsson

High Intensity Interval Training is extremely effective for fat loss and for dramatically improving your cardio
capabilities. Learn exactly how to perform Interval Training for maximum results.

By Marc David

What person just starts down the right path to anything? Hardly any of us. The first time we are introduced to structured learning is in kindergarten. That type of learning follows us into grade school, middle school, high school and maybe college.

So why is it that so many beginners just “do stuff?” It’s not like we are born with the instincts to even tie shoes without somebody showing us the way.

At 16, I didn’t know what to do. I started reading this book by Bob Paris, and some Muscle and Fitness issues. But I knew even then it wasn’t natural and that I would never take any drugs to propel myself to what I wanted. Those books had some good stuff in them but it wasn’t exactly written for me as a beginner. I almost felt like in order to be in shape and to be big, you just had to be that way naturally. I’ll be you can guess what happened next…

I did some more stuff. No structure. In fact, up until I was 27 years old, I basically did what all beginners do. Just stuff. Maybe a heavy bench session here and there, just shooting for whatever reps I could get. No idea what I had to previously. No structured training program and no idea of nutrition other then it’s common sense not to eat candy all day and I needed to eat or eat less if I wanted to make changes. Needless to say…

Nothing changed. That’s right. Imagine, yourself doing something since you were 16 years old and at age 27 you were “fit” but not really at your goal, not really that big and not anywhere close to what you wanted to accomplish. And yet guys, who worked out maybe 2 years, were exactly where you wanted to be. Moreover… you saw plenty of people cheating their way to the top. I couldn’t even figure out a good diet let along contemplate anything more complex.

Make no mistake… I was frustrated. And the reason I was frustrated for all those years was that I never started out in kindergarten and worked my way up. My point is…

If people take classes to learn another language, and go to school to learn a trade, and pay an instructor to help them drive, what makes working out and obtaining a goal any different? Let me break some news to you.

Eating healthy is NOT common sense. Working out is NOT common sense.

That’s right. I said it. The reason I was frustrated was mainly that I thought you just hit the weights and got bigger. Trust me, I had some really intense weight sessions. And yet I might have worked at 110% and blew it the minute I left the gym.

Okay, so there’s the beginner who has never worked out but learns about it, gets the nutrition down, understands that, finds a training program and starts out. In 2 years, this person is advanced.

On the other hand, there’s me, who after 16 years was physically not a beginner but mentally still was a beginner.

Can you see my frustration?

But my problem is your opportunity.

You see, if you knew what I know now, and trust me when I say there’s no big secrets, you’d be a beginner for a lot less time. You’d have to work hard but not quite as hard and you’d know why you made some changes and why you didn’t.

Here’s more,…

My mom used to cook dinners every night. I wanted to get bigger. I just ate enough so I wasn’t hungry and that was it. Now that’s fine if I wanted to maintain, but here I had an idea and image in my head and couldn’t get to it. I had no idea what nutrition really was all about. I didn’t know how much I should even eat to get bigger?

That’s like getting a destination, no GPS, no map and no directions. How long would it take you to find that town if you just got in the car and started driving? After 16 years you might get lucky and find it or you might just be chasing the Road to El Dorado.

It’s simple really. Everybody wants to sell you a secret. But here’s the real secret and here’s how I stumbled on it.

I found a workout program called Max-OT. Finally, a very structured workout program. What to do, when to do it and how. And it told me to lift heavy. It also gave me a tiny insight into eating right. But not enough. Somehow I got lucky and found a Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book. I printed it out. And that was it.

That was my ah-ha moment.

The secret was KNOWLEDGE.

Let me repeat that.

KNOWLEDGE

Nothing I’ve run across today is a big secret. It’s not like nobody is telling anybody about this. What the problem seems to be is that beginners don’t know where to start and they don’t think they need any help. So at some point they get very frustrated and end up quitting or losing sight. Not to mention the sheer wealth of information on the Internet in an unstructured manner is mind boggling. So what if all this information is on a bodybuilding forum. In 34,567 posts, with 9,567 members. Let me take the hex number and make it readable to the human eye.

If I took 12 million pages of information, some horrible, some bad, some good and some true gold and threw it all over the house, took a blower to it and scattered every paper all over, that is what you have right now.

It would take you 2 years or more to go thru each page to find out what information was good, how many others confirmed that to be true and then you’d have to make your own table of contents and put it all together.

Just because it’s out there doesn’t mean much if it’s not good, it’s not structured and it’s not written for you.

Here’s what I’ve learned in just 2 years:

• What I need to eat in order to reach my goals and how to figure that out easily and quickly with just basic high school math.

• How I need to train and how less is actually more.

• Why being controlled and having excellent form gives me 50% more gains then the guy/gal next to me who drops the weight on the bottom half of the movement.

• How I can measure my progress easily and quickly and best of all… privately. So that I know where I’ve been and how close I am to getting there.

• That not all carbs are the same

• There’s such a thing as good fats and by taking a fat pill I can lose weight

The truth is…

I tried tons of workout programs. But my main failure wasn’t necessarily the routines I was doing but the lack of knowledge I had. Can you imagine what it would be like to take 16 years to learn how to tie your shoe? Well that’s what I felt. I wanted something so bad that I tried it all.

Heck, I even skipped dinners (skipping meals is a no-no) on weekends because I was too busy and tried protein shakes that didn’t mix well with water to put on weight.

So it all adds up to this…

I was a beginner for roughly 16 years. And while not physically a beginner I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Reading magazines by companies with an agenda is a horrible way to figure it out. And reading books by professionals who took paths and risk I would never take is also a waste of time.

Which is why I’m writing.

I’ve finally figured it out. And I know I’m not alone because I run a bodybuilding forum, and a fitness site and I get 5-10 e-mails or posts a day with people just like me. Who want something and have no idea how to get there. I know they will try everything and many of them will quit. And a few will go on to struggle for years until they finally realize the secret to getting this dream is understanding the nutrition, the training and the supplements.

Trust me, nobody wants to be a beginner for 16 years.

If you liked this article…you will love:

The Beginners Guide to Fitness & Bodybuilding

By Sean Nalewanyj

There is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to the topic of building muscle, and sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start. If you’re an average beginner looking for some basic guidelines to follow in the gym, the following 8 points will start you off on the right track.

1.) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements.

If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you absolutely must train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunge. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers.

2.) Be Prepared To Train Hard.

One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure.

Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form.

Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple.

3.) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week.

Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.

4.) Avoid Overtraining.

Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don’t provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.

5.) Eat More Frequently.

The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don’t provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.

6.) Increase Your Protein Intake.

Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.

7.) Increase Your Water Intake.

If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body’s water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of bodyweight each day for optimal gains.

8.) Be Consistent!

Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply!

Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.

     About The Author

Sean Nalewanyj is a bodybuilding expert, fitness author and writer of top-selling Internet Bodybuilding E-Book: The Truth About Building Muscle. If you want to learn how to build the greatest amount of lean muscle mass and strength possible in the shortest period of time, visit his website: http://www.MuscleGainTruth.com/

Well, just change your mind!

If you want to gain mass, start with this simple 3-step exercise.

1. Take off your shirt.
2. Walk up to the mirror.
3. Take a good, hard look at yourself.

What do you see? A skinny guy with a vacant stare? Now close your eyes, and try to see what you want to see: A ripped guy bursting with overpowering confidence and energy!

Between the skinny guy and the ripped guy, there’s a small physical divide. But a large mental chasm.

Those who fail to cross, do so because the mind gives in too soon. And that’s because your mind is totally unaware of the vast potential of your body!

Now you know why my program strives to build awareness before training you to build mass. As your personal trainer, I want to make you aware of the strengths and limitations of your body and your approach to muscle gain. When you know your body, you can no longer fall victim to Body Image blues, which can keep you from acting positively towards your goal, or make you quit in frustration before the results start showing.

If you fit this description, my proven program will work like a dream - if you’re willing to give it what it takes.

Remember that while building a stronger, more healty body is a physical journey, it must begin with the mind. And that includes more than the psychological preparation for starting the program and sticking with it. It’s about understanding your body, your lifestyle and how to apply that knowledge to achieve the best results. And there lies the difference between my program and some of the others you’ll find on the Internet.

This program is not just about driving to the gym for an hour of exercise or replacing cola with juice. It’s a complete lifestyle change involving the right diet, exercise regimen, sufficient rest and a positive outlook.

This program is as much about things you do; as about things you don’t do. Giving up junk food for a sensible, nutritious diet and missing that late night movie to get enough rest is all part of the package. You can’t force your body into building mass. If you aren’t following the right diet or training, your body is spending most of its resources on healing the damage- with not enough left over for building mass.

My program works by taking the guesswork out of building mass.

My muscle gain program is specifically tailored to the needs of the skinny guy who must work around his body’s high metabolism to gain weight.

It’s a simple yet effective blueprint for building the body of your dreams. I’ve come across many guys who find it too easy to believe or follow. I have only one thing to say to them-

If you are sick and the doctor prescribes two tablets a day, would you take four, or mix and match from your own medicine cabinet to get better results? You know exactly what to expect if you mess with your body. Gaining Mass is no different.

As your personal trainer I’ll walk you through the basics of diet and weight training, the truth about health supplements and exercise machines, simple measurement techniques and a complete Mass Gaining regimen. You will embark on a total ‘anabolic’ process - resulting in muscle build up and a powerful sense of well-being.

Here are some current results:

‘Thank you, thank you and thank you. I have just completed my first month and am amazed at the results of your great program. I have gained 20lbs. (185-205) although my bodyfat has only raised two points.’
Kevin W., Hawaii

‘Writing to let you know that I have gained 12 pounds in four weeks. When I started I was 140 pounds (5% bodyfat) at 6′ 2′. Now I’m up to 152 (8%). My goal is 170, and I’m very confident that I’ll reach it by the end of the summer. I love it! Its been said before, but I’ll say it again — You are the man!’
Geoff R., Maryland

This is a very small sample of the hundreds of UNSOLICITED testimonials that I receive regularly. Click here, if you would like to read more testimonials.

This could be you. What’s holding you back? Try this program at my expense, so You have nothing to lose. I want you to test this information out at my expense. Because I believe that this information can help you, I am offering you a No Risk, 100% Unconditional Lifetime Money-Back Guarantee. That’s right, Lifetime! There is absolutely No Risk on your part. Pay only if you get results!

I want you to order your package today, read it and give it an honest try. If you don’t get any results simply return it for an immediate refund. You have nothing to lose, and possibly a new you to gain!

For only $79.95 you will receive:

By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com

Not long ago, one of the members of my health club poked her head in my office for some advice. Linda was a 46 year old mother of two, and she had been a member for over a year. She had been working out sporadically, with (not surprisingly), sporadic results. On that particular day, she seemed to have enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye that I hadn’t seen before.

"I want to enter a before and after fitness contest called the “12 week body transformation challenge." I could win money and prizes and even get my picture in a magazine."

“I want to lose THIS”, she continued, as she grabbed the body fat on her stomach. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

Linda was not “obese,” she just had the typical “moderate roll” of abdominal body fat and a little bit of thigh/hip fat that many forty-something females struggle with.

“I think it’s a great idea,” I reassured her. “Competitions are great for motivation. When you have a deadline and you dangle a “carrot” like that prize money in front of you, it can keep you focused and more motivated than ever.”

Linda was eager and rarin’ to go. “Will you help me? I have this enrollment kit and I need my body fat measured.”

“No problem,” I said as I pulled out my Skyndex fat caliper, which is used to measure body fat percentage with a “pinch an inch” test.

When I finished, I read the results to her from the caliper display: “Twenty-seven percent. Room for improvement, but not bad; it’s about average for your age group.”

She wasn’t overjoyed at being ‘average’. “Yeah, but it’s not good either. Look at THIS,” she complained as again she grabbed a handful of stomach fat. “I want to get my body fat down to 19%, I heard that was a good body fat level.”

I agreed that 19% was a great goal, but told her it would take a lot of work because average fat loss is usually about a half a percent a week, or six percent in twelve weeks. Her goal, to lose eight percent in twelve weeks was ambitious.

She smiled and insisted, “I’m a hard worker. I can do it”

Indeed she was and indeed she did. She was a machine! Not only did she never miss a day in the gym, she trained HARD. Whenever I left my office and took a stroll through the gym, she was up there pumping away with everything she had. She told me her diet was the strictest it had ever been in her life and she didn’t cheat at all. I believed her, and it started to show, quickly.

Each week she popped into my office to have her body fat measured again, and each week it went down, down, down. Consistently she lost three quarters of a percent per week – well above the average rate of fat loss – and on two separate occasions, I recall her losing a full one percent body fat in just seven days.

Someone conservative might have said she was overtraining, but when we weighed her and calculated her lean body mass, we saw that she hadn’t lost ANY muscle – only fat. Her results were simply exceptional!

She was ecstatic, and needless to say, her success bred more success and she kept after it like a hungry tiger for the full twelve weeks.

On week twelve, day seven, she showed up in my office for her final weigh-in and body fat measurement. She was wearing a pair of formerly tight blue jeans and they were FALLING OFF her!

“Look, look, look,” she repeated giddily as she tugged at her waistband, which was now several inches too large.

As I took her body fat, I have to say, I was impressed. She hadn’t just lost a little fat, she was “RIPPED!”

During week twelve she dropped from 18% to 17% body fat, for a grand total of 10% body fat lost in three months. She surpassed her goal of 19% by two percent. I was now even more impressed, because not many people lose that much body fat in three months.

You should have seen her! She started jumping up and down for joy like she was on a pogo stick! She was beaming… grinning from ear to ear! She practically knocked me over as she jumped up and gave me a hug – “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Don’t thank me,” I said, “You did it, I just measured your body fat.”

She thanked me again anyway and then said she had to go have her “after” pictures taken.

Then something very, very strange happened. She stopped coming to the gym. Her "disappearance" was so abrupt, I was worried and I called her. She never picked up, so I just left messages.

No return phone call.

It was about four months later when I finally saw Linda again. The giddy smile was gone, replaced with a sullen face, a droopy posture and a big sigh when I said hello and asked where she’d been.

“I stopped working out after the contest… and I didn’t even win.”

“You looked like a winner to me, no matter what place you came in” I insisted, “but why did you stop, you were doing so well!”

“I don’t know, I blew my diet and then just completely lost my motivation. Now look at me, my weight is right back where I started and I don’t even want to know my body fat.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you back in here again. Write down some new goals for yourself and remember to think long term too. Twelve week goals are important, but fitness isn’t 12 week program you know, it’s a lifestyle - you have to do it every day, for the rest of your life.”

She nodded her head and finished her workout, still with a defeated look on her face. Unfortunately, she never again come anywhere near the condition she achieved for that competition, and for the rest of the time she was a member at our club, she slipped right back into the sporadic on and off workout pattern.

Linda was not an isolated case. I’ve seen the same thing happen with countless men and women of all ages and fitness levels from beginners to competitive bodybuilders. In fact, it happens to millions of people who “go on” diets, lose a lot of weight, then quickly “go off” the diet and gain the weight right back.

What causes people to burn so brightly with enthusiasm and motivation and then burn out just as quickly? Why do so many people succeed brilliantly in the short term but fail 95 out of 100 times in the long term? Why do so many people reach their fitness goals but struggle to maintain them?

The answer is simple: Health and fitness is for life, not for "12 weeks."

You can avoid the on and off, yo-yo cycle of fitness ups and downs. You can get in great shape and stay in great shape. You can even get in shape and keep getting in better and better shape year after year, but it’s going to take a very different philosophy than most people subscribe to. The seven tips below will guide you.

These guidelines are quite contrary to the quick fix philosophies prevailing in the weight loss and fitness world today. Applying them will take patience, discipline and dedication and they will put you in the minority. Just remember, the only thing worse than getting no results is getting great results and losing them.

1) Don’t “go on” diets. When you “go on” a diet, the underlying assumption is that at some point you have to “go off” it. This isn’t just semantics, it’s one of the primary reasons most diets fail. By definition, a “diet” is a temporary and often drastic change in your eating behaviors and/or a severe restriction of calories or food, which is ultimately, not maintainable. If you reach your goal, the diet is officially “over” and then you "go off" (returning to the way you used to eat). Health and fitness is not temporary; it’s not a “diet.” It’s something you do every day of your life. Unless you approach nutrition from a “habits” and “lifestyle” perspective, you’re doomed from the start.

2) Eat the same healthy foods consistently, all year round. Permanent fat loss is best achieved by eating mostly the same types of foods all year round. Naturally, you should include a wide variety of healthy foods so you get the full spectrum of nutrients you need, but there should be consistency, month in, month out. When you want to lose body fat, there’s no dramatic change necessary - you don’t need to eat totally different foods - it’s a simple matter of eating less of those same healthy foods and exercising more.

3) Have a plan for easing into maintenance. Let’s face it – sometimes a nutrition program needs to be more strict than usual. For example, peaking for a bodybuilding, figure, fitness or transformation challenge contest requires an extremely strict regimen that’s different than the rest of the year. As a rule, the stricter your nutrition program, the more you must plan ahead and the more time you must allow for a slow, disciplined transition into maintenance. Failure to plan for a gradual transition will almost always result in a huge binge and a very rapid, hard fall "off the wagon."

4) Focus on changing daily behaviors and habits one or two at a time. Rather than making huge, multiple changes all at once, focus on changing one or two habits/behaviors at a time. Most psychologists agree that it takes about 21 days of consistent effort to replace an old bad habit with a new positive one. As you master each habit, and it becomes as ingrained into your daily life as brushing your teeth, then you simply move on to the next one. That would be at least 17 new habits per year. Can you imagine the impact that would have on your health and your life? This approach requires patience, but the results are a lot more permanent than if you try to change everything in one fell swoop. This is also the least intimidating way for a beginner to start making some health-improving changes to their lifestyle.

5) Make goal setting a lifelong habit. Goal setting is not a one-time event, it’s a process that never ends. For example, if you have a 12 week goal to lose 6% bodyfat, what are you going to do after you achieve it? Lose even more fat? Gain muscle? What’s next? On week 13, day 1, if you have no direction and no long term goal to keep you going, you’ll have nothing to keep you from slipping back into old patterns. Every time you achieve a short term goal (daily, weekly and 12 week goals), you must set another one. Having short term goals means that you are literally setting goals continuously and never stopping.

6) Allow a reasonable time frame to reach your goal. It’s important to set deadlines for your fitness and weight loss goals. It’s also important to set big, ambitious goals, but you must allow a reasonable time frame for achieving them. Time pressure is often the motivating force that helps people get in the best shape of their lives. But when the deadline is unrealistic for a particular goal (like 30 pounds in 30 days), then crash dieting or other extreme measures are often taken to get there before the bell. The more rapidly you lose weight, the more likely you are to lose muscle and the faster the weight will come right back on afterwards. Start sooner. Don’t wait until mid-May to think about looking good for summer.

7) Extend your time perspective. Successful people in every field always share one common character trait: Long term time perspective. Some of the most successful Japanese technology and manufacturing companies have 100 year and even 250-year business plans. If you want to be successful in maintaining high levels of fitness, you must set long term goals: One year, Ten years, Even fifty years! You also must consider what the long term consequences might be as a result of using any "radical" diet, training method or ergogenic aid. The people who had it but lost it are usually the ones who failed to think long term or acknowledge future consequences. It’s easy for a 21 year old to live only for today, and it may even seem ridiculous to set 25 year goals, but consider this: I’ve never met a 40 or 60 year old who didn’t care about his or her health and appearance, but I have met 40 or 60 year olds who regretted not caring 25 years ago.

Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) is a fat loss program which acknowledges the simple truth that going "on diets," entering "Fitness challenges" or competing in "Transformation contests" without having long term goals and a lifestyle attitude, is a recipe for failure. Don’t let yourself be part of the latest fitness dropout statistics: visit the Burn The Fat website for more details on how to change your lifestyle… and keep the change! www.burnthefat.com

About the Author:

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom’s Fat Loss program, visit: www.burnthefat.com