The Actionaut

There’s a bunch of trainers our there. What would make you pick me over another? I am not the bee’s knees, but then maybe I am. It’s a matter of perception. I am not going to talk and gloat about my constantly upgraded, humbled, broken down, improved or reality-checked skill set, because I have coaches and mentors who would slap me 36 ways till dinner and then continue, because I know only a fraction of what they know.

I am a father, a husband and this is not a job. Training is a career, a passion, a true calling. I am not a fair-weather trainer, in-between acting gigs or waiting for some better thing to come around.

I understand struggles, life, responsibilities and everything that falls into that. I learn more so I can discard more and simplify.

I’ve simplified so much that in 6 short weeks, I maintained my weight and dropped 2% body fat without trying, just following a simple plan. So simple, I only did 2 exercises per day and kept my workouts short, very short.

In the following 6-week round, I have already packed on 3lb of muscle and over 12″ around my frame, and I’m only 3 weeks deep into it. I packed 3″ on my chest, 4″ on my shoulders, 1″ on each leg, 2″ on each arm and 1.5″ around my hips/glutes between October 10 an October 31, 2011. Body fat remained the same.

Yes, I am in “bulking up”, but not really trying. I am more in a “non-prep” prep phase for a tough 11-mile obstacle course. I just want to have the strength and stamina to do it. The bulk is a bonus.

I am watching my eating, though I am flexible and do not deprive myself. This isn’t a weight loss program. But if I did watch what I eat, the same program would make me lose fat. Because the first 6 weeks where I maintained body weight and lost fat means I added muscle, but got leaner. That’s to 1/2 the population out there, who wishes to lose weight. It can be done, easily, correctly.

My eating fueled my recovery and my ability to push through the next phase, and only half-way through, I made tremendous gains. That’s to the other 1/2 of the population, and more specifically, to all the hardgainers out there who waste hours at the gym and do not put on an ounce of muscle or walk away sore but unable to do any of the things they wish they could do. I am a hardgainer, so imagine what you can achieve if you are not one!

Remember, my being the father of a toddler and husband means I do not have the luxury to kick around the gym for a few hours, doing two workouts a day and watch myself in the mirror. I do not have the cash flow to operate a body fueled on illegal substances. I am 37 years old. I can push as hard as anyone ten years younger or more. It also means I am no rookie.

The race is my personal goal, and I want to prove that I can design a program that will both allow me to get ready and be ready anytime, even now. I know it works, I tested it.

I have the experience so you can have the education. I overcame challenges so you can do it better. I work hard because I didn’t win the genetic lottery and was busy the day God was giving away natural talents. Then he had mercy on me and gave me the gift of teaching. That also motivated me to be the guy that can and does, not just teaches.

Wanna know how I did it?

Wait another 3 weeks… I will keep you posted here and there. But I got something coming your way you won’t want to miss.

Comments (1) Oct 31 2011

The past two blog entries have been about simplicity, conditioning while being able to move well, so it is only logical that I end the series with something about strength endurance. I have to admit, this topic should have been mentioned first, as it is the basis of all training. Yes, ALL training, be it for the marathoner or the powerlifter, the martial artist or the triathlete. Why first? Training should always start and end with strength, just like movement starts and ends with the core. Develop strength, EVERYTHING ELSE gets better.

STRENGTH MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER
Work on your “cardio” by running only. You’ll get good, improve your cardiovascular endurance, maybe destroy your knees or toes in the process, and continue feeling low back pain, with a crap looking body.
Work on getting stronger with squats and deadlifts, which are compound exercises working many muscles over multiple joints, your running will become much better, with a lesser probability of injuries, a more efficient muscular recruitment, thus less fatigue (and even more speed) all leading to better cardiovascular endurance if better “cardio” is your goal. You burn more fat, experience less pain and improve the way your body looks.
WINNER: he/she who trains with weights.

CHALLENGE ME, GO AHEAD!
I’ve said before that I have never had a client come to me and ask to get weaker. However, indirectly, some have made this odd request because all they wanted was to lose weight, and weight loss is obtained through cardio, as sycophants and ignoramuses (ignorami? Spell checker can’t decide) would have you believe for the last 3 decades. As indicated in the previous paragraph, if you develop your muscles, your abilities improve, your protect your joints, you burn more fat and feel and look better. Runners who lift run faster: easier stride for long distance running, while sprinters work those biceps and upper body, pumping their arms which helps their speed (and have you seen their bodies? Very muscular bodies with caloric furnaces!).

Some folks talk about strength endurance and it’s been noticed that few people work on their strength to achieve that. To have strength endurance implies you must have strength first. You cannot do a snatch test (100 reps in 5 minutes with a 53lb kettlebell for men, 26-35lb for women) if you don’t have the snatch down.

WHY ARE YOU POSTING THIS LAST?
Yes, why indeed. Because I want you now to go back to the first 2 blogs in this series, the one about grunge training, simply lifting heavy stuff and the one about moving better while conditioning your body, and I want you to get stronger. Keep your cardio, running and biking however you have it, don’t change a thing. Just take notes on how it’s getting better. Go back to the blog about mobility, which should be concurrent with your strength training, and see how you breeze through it instead of wheeze through it. Put it all together and you have Strength Endurance.

First thing to work on, then you can have it all!

Comments (0) Oct 18 2011

Words one rarely hears from your average trainer, right? Usually it’s go!go!go! and push!push!push!

And sometimes, that yields diminishing returns. Sh*t, I myself pushed so hard recently, I reach a short term goal successfully at the expense of another goal. One was a professional goal out of necessity, the other a personal one. When you chase 2 goals, sometimes, you’re lucky if you get one. I was lucky I reached the pro goal at least, the necessary one. Both in fitness, btw.

So, I’ve decided to scale everything back. Follow my own program, not one I got from another brilliant and successful coach in my own training community. Not to say you shouldn’t get a program from someone else (I do that daily for others), but as in all programs designed in a book for numbers (as in numbers of readers/buyers) you CANNOT personalize. Sometimes, I like to experiment with other’s work, sometimes I design my own for myself as I do for others. And I find the latter works much, much better for me (not because I am better, but because I have applied the knowledge others instilled in me and chose the best possible aspects of it to my needs and physiology at the present moment, which is the point of education).

Another person’s design may not suit your reality. Life happens, and you may have the discipline to follow through the steps as prescribed, but sometimes, you simply ought not to, because you wind up further away. Yes, I agree sometimes that a bad workout is better than no workout, as another great trainer FB friend of mine and RKC posted in her blog, but (and I pointed that out to a client recently), sometimes you need more rest, more food in you or any variable that your program factors in and life factored out that day. Say you dropped a couple of pounds from lack of sleep and lack of food, whatever the reason (baby schedule off in my case), should you push for an all-out workout that morning, when you’re neurologically weak and it’s your heavy day? Answer #1 can be Yes, you might learn something. I learned once like that that if I dropped a pound or two, didn’t sleep enough, I shouldn’t progress in the session as planned (I log all variables and all screw-ups as well as successes which helps me isolate the missing element). Don’t wanna teach myself and my body a bad habit and break the groove. So answer #2 is No, for me at least and really, sometimes you too.

If you miss the train, there’ll be another one. If you fall off the train, well, you know what happens…

So, I am resetting, going back to the basics, going light. Call me a wuss if you want. I dare YOU to take it easy and go light and be man/woman enough to own it! Reset your neural pathways and go strong in a little bit again!

Comments (0) Aug 02 2011

I have a confession to make.

VALUE
If I could train for free, I would. It’s been a calling, a lifestyle, a passion that has not extinguished the fire because I’ve been so thirsty for knowledge, I constantly find new things, new ways which often end up being old ways and even older tools, going back to birth or ancestry. Because it never feels like work, I have a hard time putting a price on years of practice and research, over 12,000 hours of training hundreds of clients (conservative figures), input and validation I received from some of the world’s best coaches in their respective fields. I just look at the market, what’s out there and price it about right, not enough to make me rich, enough to pay the bills and keep people coming back, happy to get the results they seek.

“BACK” STORY
It’s been 10 years since I was laying in traction, with multiple disc herniations and nerve damage. Years of hard martial arts practices, hard landings from throws, triangulation chokes, neck cranks, car accidents and lifting with sub-par form led me to that period of rehab which took 2 years for me to be considered “normal” (which was nowhere near where I am now, in terms of abilities, strength development and freedom of movement). I was working in TV production, live events, pre-taped, working in many countries on many subjects. I was training people on the side, for fun mostly, until a close friend of mine helped me get a job as a trainer. That’s when I started to educate myself more.

EVOLUTION (GYM MEMBER TO TRAINER TO COACH)
My hobby became a profession. Part time, then full time. Working for the man, then working for myself. Getting certified and thinking inside the box to questioning and working outside the box. Seeking what works in real life vs what’s in a vacuum of non-reality. Listening to the body vs following a cookie cutter approach. Wildfitness opened my mind, RKC improved my skills, martial arts, my first passion, reminded me of how it was there all this time, and why it’s been there for centuries before me. The birth of my son and his first year of development validated it all.

HAVE NO LIMITATIONS AS LIMITATIONS (BRUCE LEE)
I am not the fastest, strongest, biggest, leanest, most knowledgeable, most flexible coach and athlete. Hardly sounding like overachieving qualities, you may wonder… But that’s exactly it, where the “Oblique Strategy” is! First of all, you can’t be all of the above, certainly not at once. “There will always be someone else better than you” said a beloved martial arts instructor to me once. I first perceived it as an insult, only realizing once I matured that this was a call for self-improvement and constant drive to instill others with the same focus and determination.

What’s your story? I’d really like to hear it.

Comments (0) Apr 21 2011

On Sunday, December 12, 2010, I participated, along with 3 other tough guys, in an event called the Spartan Race.
Rather than do the thing on my own, I thought it’d be more fun to have a team (besides saving a few beer bucks on the registration fee and building team spirit).

I like to work towards a goal, and the mere training goals of strength building or hypertrophy didn’t tickle my adrenal glands enough to generate any kind of training fire inside me. While my personal routine didn’t change in preparation of the event, I wanted to prove that I can be ready any time, any day, and that the conditioning I put myself through would be enough. So, the only variable I changed in my training was my diet, which was great because I embarked on a journey I’ve been hearing about and wanted to experience myself after rave reviews. I’m talking about Ori Hofmekler’s Warrior Diet. My personal results have been fantastic and I am glad to endorse it!

Why The Warrior Diet: Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse For High Energy, Explosive Strength, and a Leaner, Harder Body?
Well, for starters, if my own coaches and RKC comrades have been raving about it, it was endorsement enough for me to give it a shot. Designed for efficiency and maximal energy, it seemed like a no-brainer since my journey as a new father has been tough on the eating and sleeping schedule, 2 vital components of any successful fitness program. I directly asked Pavel Tsatsouline, who’s been on it for years I believe, his take on it. While it wouldn’t necessarily pack mass on me, it would give me plenty of energy and time to both work and take care of the baby when my wife needed time for herself and her work, in between my own clients.
Since any balanced diet revolves around insulin management, I was skeptical because all I was ever taught was to eat frequent meals during the day, which prevents overeating and “survival” metabolic slow-down. See, the Warrior Diet has you go through periods of controlled under-eating during the day alternating with over-eating at night.

I can almost see your furrowed brow on one side, raised brow on the other side. Some of your “hmm…” can be heard through the web too!

WHAT’S THE DEAL?
Hofmekler has you eat only live and raw foods during the day. Coffee or tea is allowed. Drink as much water as you want of course. Squeeze some fresh veggies and fruits and guzzle it down, chew on some raw almonds, cashews or pistachios. Hunger is a sign of vitality. Of course, don’t mistake that for an anorexic program! You eat enough to sustain and actually stimulate insulin release and get you going, burning fat and preserving muscle. You can even ingest a protein shake. But don’t stuff yourself like the domestic nomadic Zoo animal our society turned us into. Think predator, hungry, strong and driven to survive and thrive! When a big cat like a lion or a tiger feasts, they eat till satisfied, unsure of when their next meal comes. That’s you at dinner time. Eat till you’re more thirsty than hungry. Follow the VERY HEALTHY order of salad first, then your veggies, then your protein and if you have room, your carbs. Mix and match textures, colors, tastes (crunchy, soft, sweet, sour, savory, green, red, cold, hot…) and eat away. Then, rest up and sleep. While asleep (night time, circadian rhythm), you only use enough calories to rebuild your muscles from your hunt (I mean, training), while stocking up energy for the day ahead.

Think warrior, Roman soldier: when do you have time during battle to take a break and eat. Your adrenaline’s pumping, you’re hungry for life, food but need to stay razor sharp. How do you think you’d do if you felt like after Thanksgiving dinner while trying to slash away at your enemies? Lethargic is my guess. Save that for sleep!

Hofmekler goes into better detail in his book, and I urge you to give it a shot. I wouldn’t if I didn’t try it myself.

COMPARE TO OTHER DIETS
I have always been a fan of the TNT diet, which taught me that we only burn carbs at high physical intensity training (weights, sprints, martial arts, surfing, tennis…) and burn fat when our heart rate is slow/resting (blogging, sleeping, surfing your desk, watching TV…). The Paleo diet adheres to the same principle, though I am no fan of eating liver, kidneys or any other filtration organs and I do mind eating the better cuts of meat. I am picky, I won’t eat certain parts, like the heart or the brain. Sorry, Paleo dieters, you’re better people than I am, and I see no real reason to do this, other than maybe to generate less waste from the animal that “donated” its life.
The Zone diet doesn’t work, because not everyone’s needs are the same. Athletes vs couch potatoes, pregnant vs non-pregnant women, marathon runners vs shot putters. You can’t say we all need 30% fat, 30% protein, 40% carbs. And ultimately, the body reach homeostasis, so why not try something new, that makes sense and is on par with your goals? It even works if you’re not a lifter, and just want a new program. Read it, read Ori’s points and analysis.

WHAT IT DID FOR ME
I started 10 days before my 5K obstacle course in the Malibu mountains, the infamous Spartan Race. By body fat percentage was at 12.5% on a Saturday. On Tuesday, I had dropped 3% body fat at my annual physical exam. My lifts, my energy and my mood have been better. On the day of the race, after completing uphill runs, scaling steep 10′ walls, mud crawls, cold water swim, cargo nets and gladiators with big foam sticks at the finish line, I felt exhilarated, elated and I never got sore nor did I feel more fatigued than after a “medium” intensity workout!

To me, that was validation enough in my eating with the Warrior Diet, as well as my training with kettlebells, powerlifts and natural movement patterns, staples of my (and your) physical fitness development!
(I did run wearing my Vibram Five-Fingers and was glad I did. The grip and agility it gave me, especially after crawling through wet, muddy areas, was a nice welcome compared to wearing soggy sneakers!)

Comments (0) Dec 14 2010

This is by far the most common desire and goal for anyone who exercises for the purpose of health.
While there is a vanity factor we should all acknowledge within ourselves (it’s natural, it’s actually not vain but driven by our species’ need to thrive, survive and reproduce), not exercising 3 times a week is actually bad for you (something I see plastered on the walls of Gold’s Gym Venice, based on some scientific study which I don’t recall the exact source…).

Why yes, it is bad for you if you don’t exercise, because of one word: entropy!

ENTROPY
Not doing squat (I am not referring to the exercise) is bad because as we age, we lose about a pound of muscle every couple of years past 30. If a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day (at rest) and you lose 5lb of muscle in your 30′s, when you reach 40, you can gain up to 90lb! How does that work? If you’re not burning 50 calories a day for a year, that’s 50×365=18250 calories the pound of muscle made you not burn. A pound of fat is 3600 calories, so that’s roughly 5lb between the ages of 30 and 32. Compound that over a decade, you get pretty close to 90lb, EVEN IF YOU ARE EATING THE SAME HEALTHY FOODS YOU’VE BEEN EATING THE WHOLE TIME!!!

HOW DO I GET TONED?
Well, that’s the culmination of all things wellness related: nutrition, training, sleep patterns and hormonal balance and environmental factors (work, home, stress…). I emphasized exercise for health in the first sentence. Performance based exercise is geared at a specific goal, such as an athlete trying to lift a certain weight, run a certain distance, fight X amount of rounds… The result leads to improved muscle tone and a greater functionality in the muscles anyway, without being the main goal. Consequently, let me ask you this: why not pick a performance-driven goal so you can both look good and do stuff? You don’t have to be an athlete to train like one. Besides, training like an athlete puts you in a better frame of mind for EVERYTHING else in your life. That competitive edge, the desire to push and better yourself is something society is lacking. We make excuses, look for shortcuts and fail.

So, go ahead and DO it. Don’t try, that’s just a promise to fail!

Become Flexible, so you can have more mobility, less aches and pains and greater ability in your daily activities.
Develop your Agility and hand-eye coordination, so you’ll never be off guard, always ready and better prepared with sharper reflexes.
Lift to get Strong, because no one needs to be weak. Lift that baby while you’re carrying groceries, move that couch, push the stranger’s dead car off the main road, rescue the damsel from the fire.
More muscle, more speed, more movement leads to more Tone anyway.

Congratulations, you are now FAST!

To read pillars 1 through 3, click on the links below:
Pillar 1: Flexibility
Pillar 2: Agility
Pillar 3: Strength

Comments (0) Nov 15 2010

My FAST Philosophy revolves around 4 pillars and a 4-way approach to fitness. The pillars are Fast, Agile, Strong and Toned and the 4 steps are about 4 elements (nutrition, training, hormones, environment), 3 steps (skill development, practice, application), 2 modalities (Ballistics and Grinds, as in the RKC school of strength training) and 1 body (yours).

FLEXIBLE ASSOCIATIONS
When you mention “flexibility”, most people think of yogis, dancers, Pilates instructors and generally very lean body types. Other words associated with flexibility, among others, are “stretching” and for the folks who are not flexible, “pain” and “discomfort” also comes to mind. However, few people think of strength when the word “flexibility” is brought up.

STRENGTH STRETCHING:
Have you ever seen an Olympic lifter lift well over their bodyweight in an overhead lockout and deep squat? The shoulders or fully brachiated, elbows locked, chest open, back flat and straight and buttocks inches from the ground, heels firmly planted. I challenge you to go pick up a broomstick and perform the same movement. Go do it now (insert intermission music here while you try). You back yet? Not so easy, huh?

The overhead squat is a great way to assess a person’s mobility, flexibility and imbalances. Notice that flexibility is only one of the aspects I am focusing on. First of all, flexibility comes from mobility, a.k.a. your ability to move well. Most people confuse stability with stiffness, whereas if I can troubleshoot your movement and teach you how to move better, you will gain better flexibility and overall stability (e.g. the overhead squat requires tremendous flexibility under load while keeping that load -you and the weight- stable). Using the example of the lifter performing an overhead squat, his back is strong, shoulders are very mobile, calves and quadriceps very flexible to allow for proper dorsiflexion while the hamstrings come in contact with the calves at the bottom of the squat without lifting the heels off the ground.

I am not saying a yogi cannot perform such a feat, rather am merely pointing the fact that the ability to move a fridge and do a backbend are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, incorporating heavy lifts into your program will not only build your muscles and allow you to burn more fat, build strength and slow down the aging process, it will help your body become more functional because you are not focused on just one modality.

PROPER STRETCHING INJURY-PROOFS YOUR BODY
Stretching is an activity that, if you’re not good at it, is often overlooked or done improperly, especially if your range of motion is poor. Plus, your mind has trained your body into thinking you can’t go past a certain point. First, assess what your individual needs are. Second, your muscles are like an animal under attack, guarded and braced. Relax the muscles as you would appease the animal and you’re likely to be able to increase your range of motion, as you can pet the fearful animal. One way to relax your muscles is by actually engaging and contracting them. Say you cannot touch your toes. Stand with your knees touching, squeeze your glutes, contract your quads and lats and forcefully push your fists downwards, toward the floor. Repeat the action at every forceful exhale as you inch along towards the ground. It’s OK to bend your knees. Just make sure your butt is dropped below your shoulders before you come back upright.
Now, take a deep breath, exhale and relax into the toe touch. You’ve just gained a few millimeters, or inches, based on your natural level of fitness. By contracting the muscles, you’ve removed the fear of pain and focused on their strength. Upon release, the relieved muscle now is like the calmed animal and goes further into the stretch.

Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation, or PNF, revolves around the concept of contracting the opposite muscles to relax the primary muscle and ease it into further range of motion. Relaxing your muscles into it is a great way to protect your muscles, especially under load when most injuries occur. Loosening up the body by loosening up the joints is a great warm-up prior to any kind of physical activity. Many people stretch before working out not realizing that stretching itself is a workout. Do a round of strength stretching and you might find the need to drop your working weight because of the onset of fatigue. And remember, when fatigued, your muscles are relaxed and if they’re too relaxed, your ability to lift heavy is compromised and you may hurt yourself.

BOTTOM LINE:
Don’t stretch when you warm-up, rather loosen up the joints.
Use tension (strength) when going into a stretch, then relax and instantly increase your range of motion (temporarily at first, gets better with practice).
Stretch after training to restore proper length-tension relationship in the muscles and connective tissue.
Flexibility under load is crucial for injury proofing the body. If you perform heavy lifts without the flexibility and mobility to maintain proper form, you WILL get injured.
If your flexibility is only the result of stretching workouts like Pilates, keep in mind that it is not enough to develop strength or the ability to load your body with heavier weights, as you will not have developed proper leverage skills for your heavy lifts.

To read about pillars 2, 3 & 4, click on the links below:
Pillar 2: Agility.
Pillar 3: Strength.
Pillar 4: Tone.

Comments (3) Oct 06 2010

It is by knowledge and experience that I navigate the oft tumultuous seas of fitness.

Comments (1) Dec 14 2009

It happened again today. It’s not like I shouldn’t expect it, and you’d think I’d learn after all this time. I even thought that after a few hours, I’d cool down a bit and let bygones be bygones. But, seeing as Mondays are usually learning days for me (Tuesdays, I write), while I am listening to a teleseminar hosted by Geoff Neuport, Senior RKC (site: http://kettlebellsecrets.com/specialer.html), interviewing Dan John (http://danjohn.net/) I thought I’d beat the iron while it’s hot.

Comments (0) Dec 07 2009

I just read a good quote that an RKC comrade uses as his signature: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

In theory, it should work

Comments (3) Oct 14 2009